Diet nutritional condition affects tergal gland secretion and courtship success of male cockroaches

An integral part of the courtship sequence of the German cockroach (Blattella germanica) involves the male raising his wings to expose tergal glands on his dorsum. When a female cockroach feeds on the secretion of these glands, she is optimally positioned for mating. Core chemical components have been identified, but the effect of male diet on the tergal gland secretion remains unexplored. After validating the pivotal role of tergal feeding in mating, we starved or fed reproductively mature males for one week. We then paired each male with a sexually receptive female and observed their interactions through an infrared-sensitive camera. While starvation had no effect on male courtship behavior, it did influence the duration of female tergal feeding and mating outcomes. Females fed longer on the gland secretion of fed males, and fed males experienced greater mating success than starved males (73.9% vs. 48.3%, respectively). These results suggest that the quality of the tergal gland secretions, and by association mating success, are dependent on the nutritional condition of the male.Funding provided by: National Science FoundationCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000001Award Number: IOS-1557864This dataset was obtained by directly observing and recording timepoints for German cockroach behaviors from pre-recorded video. After the timepoints were recorded, latencies between behvioral events of interest were calculated. The dataset was then organized into sheets according to their corresponding figure in the manuscript