What makes a good mate? Factors influencing male and female reproductive success in a polyphagous moth

• We examined the effect of male nutrition and mating history on adult reproduction.
• Larval nutrition has an overall importance in lifetime reproductive investment.
• ‘Male quality’ depends on both male larval nutrition and mating history.
• ‘Male quality’ strongly affects female reproductive output.
• Females are more motivated to mate with ‘high-quality males’.

The mating propensity of an individual is expected to depend on the costs and benefits of mating, which may vary across the sexes and across different mating opportunities. Both males and females should gain fitness either by mating with multiple mates and/or by mating with higher quality mates. Therefore, an important question in the area of sexual selection concerns what makes an optimal mate. From a female perspective, females are expected to prefer males providing direct material benefits for the present generation and/or indirect genetic benefits for their offspring in the subsequent generation. Because the male's contribution to these benefits can be limited, as reproduction imposes nontrivial costs on males, the female's benefits from mating can vary markedly as a function of the condition of her mate. In capital breeding species, in which males invest most of their larval resources in a single reproductive event, the females are likely to prefer to mate with virgin males in good condition (i.e. males that have developed on high-quality food sources). In this study we used the European grapevine moth, Lobesia botrana, to test experimentally whether the larval nutrition and mating history of males influence their quality as mates. We provided wild L. botrana males originating from different cultivars and vineyards with unlimited access to standardized females, and examined the lifetime reproductive success of the males and the consequences for the reproductive output of females. Our results show that ‘male quality’ depended on both the male larval origin and mating history, and that females discriminated between males and mated more with males having high spermatophore quality (virgin males and males from certain cultivars or vineyards) to obtain substantial direct benefits.