Male courtship song frequency as an indicator of male mating success in Drosophila montana

Drosophila montana females have been found to prefer overwintered males with short and dense (high-frequency) sound pulses in the wild. In the present study males producing high-frequency song succeeded in their courtship more often than males producing low-frequency song in mate-choice experiments. Male mating success correlated with the carrier frequency of the male song recorded after, but not before, an "artificial winter" (flies kept 6 months at 4 degrees C). The finding that female preference is based on a male song trait changing considerably during overwintering suggests that this trait may reflect the viability and condition of the males during the mating season of the flies in spring.