Male-male interactions and mating kinetics in Drosophila.

Male-male interaction (K) has been estimated from data on the attrition rate of virgin females per minute in a study of the mating kinetics in Drosophila. K is expressed as the time males expend on other males relative to that expended while searching for, courting, and copulating with females. The value of K in these studies ranged from 0 (approximately) to .695; it was affected both by strain (sepia or ebony D. melanogaster and wild-type D. simulans) and by size of the mating chamber. Host-parasitoid models of ecologists appear to be appropriate for examining mating kinetics in Drosophila.