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Behavioural resistance to remating by females is common, but the causes and consequences of resistance are rarely explained. Prominent hypotheses include resistance as a means of avoiding costly and superfluous mating, or as a means of biasing mating towards high-quality males. In species in which males produce nutritious nuptial gifts, females may further modulate resistance according to their need for nutrition. We investigated these hypotheses in the ladybeetle Adalia bipunctata, in which females frequently display vigorous resistance before copulation and ingest a spermatophore after copulation. In two experiments, we manipulated female nutritional state, depriving or satiating females for a short (16h) or long (96h) interval before a remating trial. We found that food-deprived females resisted mating more frequently and for longer periods than satiated females and consequently remated less frequently …