scholarly journals Male fish use prior knowledge about rivals to adjust their mate choice

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Bierbach ◽  
Antje Girndt ◽  
Sybille Hamfler ◽  
Moritz Klein ◽  
Frauke Mücksch ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Mate Choice ◽  
Public Information ◽  
Behavioural Response ◽  
Social Cues ◽  
Sexually Active ◽  
Male Fish ◽  
Mating Preferences ◽  
Poecilia Mexicana ◽  
Livebearing Fish

Mate choice as one element of sexual selection can be sensitive to public information from neighbouring individuals. Here, we demonstrate that males of the livebearing fish Poecilia mexicana gather complex social information when given a chance to familiarize themselves with rivals prior to mate choice. Focal males ceased to show mating preferences when being observed by a rival (which prevents rivals from copying mating decisions), but this effect was only seen when focal males have perceived rivals as sexually active. In addition, focal males that were observed by a familiar, sexually active rival showed a stronger behavioural response when rivals were larger and thus, more attractive to females. Our study illustrates an unparalleled adjustment in the expression of mating preferences based on social cues, and suggests that male fish are able to remember and strategically exploit information about rivals when performing mate choice.

scholarly journals Different preference functions act in unison: mate choice and risk-taking behaviour in the Atlantic molly (Poecilia mexicana)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolin Sommer-Trembo ◽  
Michael Schreier ◽  
Martin Plath
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Mate Choice ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Personality Type ◽  
Animal Personality ◽  
Test Subject ◽  
Phenotypic Traits ◽  
Risk Averse ◽  
Poecilia Mexicana ◽  
Livebearing Fish

AbstractConsistent individual differences in behaviour (animal personality) are widespread throughout the Animal Kingdom. This includes variation in risk-taking versus risk-averse behavioural tendencies. Variation in several personality dimensions is associated with distinct fitness consequences and thus, may become a target of natural and/or sexual selection. However, the link between animal personality and mate choice—as a major component of sexual selection—remains understudied. We asked (1) whether females and males of the livebearing fish Poecilia mexicana prefer risk-taking mating partners (directional mating preference), (2) or if their preferences are dependent on the choosing individual’s own personality type (assortative mating). We characterized each test subject for its risk-taking behaviour, assessed as the time to emerge from shelter and enter an unknown area. In dichotomous association preference tests, we offered two potential mating partners that differed in risk-taking behaviour but were matched for other phenotypic traits (body size, shape, and colouration). Females, but not males, exhibited a strong directional preference for risk-taking over risk-averse mating partners. At the same time, the strength of females’ preferences correlated positively with their own risk-taking scores. Our study is the first to demonstrate that a strong overall preference for risk-taking mating partners does not preclude effects of choosing individuals’ own personality type on (subtle) individual variation in mating preferences. More generally, two different preferences functions appear to interact to determine the outcome of individual mate choice decisions.

Audience effect alters mating preferences in a livebearing fish, the Atlantic molly, Poecilia mexicana

2008 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Plath ◽  
Dennis Blum ◽  
Ingo Schlupp ◽  
Ralph Tiedemann
Keyword(s):  
Audience Effect ◽  
Mating Preferences ◽  
Poecilia Mexicana ◽  
Livebearing Fish

3. Choosing from the field of competitors

2018 ◽  
pp. 34-51
Author(s):  
Leigh W. Simmons
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Mate Choice ◽  
Animal Species ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Mating Preferences ◽  
Contemporary View ◽  
Sexual Characteristics ◽  
Sexual Traits ◽  
Secondary Sexual

There is now unequivocal evidence for Darwin’s long-rejected suggestion that females choose among potential mates based on their secondary sexual traits. This has shifted attention from the question of whether females exercised mate choice, to why they should exhibit the mating preferences they do. ‘Choosing from the field of competitors’ gives a contemporary view of mate choice and its occurrence in a wide variety of animal species, along with some examples of what females are choosing and why parasites and disease may play a role in the evolution of extravagant secondary sexual characteristics. Several theoretical models are discussed along with the role of sexual selection in the evolution of humans.

scholarly journals Divergent Evolution of Male Aggressive Behaviour: Another Reproductive Isolation Barrier in Extremophile Poeciliid Fishes?

2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Bierbach ◽  
Moritz Klein ◽  
Vanessa Sassmannshausen ◽  
Ingo Schlupp ◽  
Rüdiger Riesch ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Mate Choice ◽  
Reproductive Isolation ◽  
Hydrogen Sulphide ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Aggressive Behaviour ◽  
Female Mate Choice ◽  
Divergent Evolution ◽  
Poecilia Mexicana ◽  
Spring Area

Reproductive isolation among locally adapted populations may arise when immigrants from foreign habitats are selected against via natural or (inter-)sexual selection (female mate choice). We asked whether also intrasexual selection through male-male competition could promote reproductive isolation among populations of poeciliid fishes that are locally adapted to extreme environmental conditions [i.e., darkness in caves and/or toxic hydrogen sulphide (H2S)]. We found strongly reduced aggressiveness in extremophile Poecilia mexicana, and darkness was the best predictor for the evolutionary reduction of aggressiveness, especially when combined with presence of H2S. We demonstrate that reduced aggression directly translates into migrant males being inferior when paired with males from nonsulphidic surface habitats. By contrast, the phylogenetically old sulphur-endemic P. sulphuraria from another sulphide spring area showed no overall reduced aggressiveness, possibly indicating evolved mechanisms to better cope with H2S.

scholarly journals Test of the Deception Hypothesis in Atlantic Mollies Poecilia mexicana—Does the Audience Copy a Pretended Mate Choice of Others?

Biology ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaudia Witte ◽  
Katharina Baumgärtner ◽  
Corinna Röhrig ◽  
Sabine Nöbel
Keyword(s):  
Mate Choice ◽  
Behavioral Change ◽  
Public Information ◽  
Information Use ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Audience Effect ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Poecilia Mexicana ◽  
Focal Fish ◽  
Males And Females

Animals often use public information for mate-choice decisions by observing conspecifics as they choose their mates and then copying this witnessed decision. When the copier, however, is detected by the choosing individual, the latter often alters its behavior and spends more time with the previously non-preferred mate. This behavioral change is called the audience effect. The deception hypothesis states that the choosing individual changes its behavior to distract the audience from the preferred mate. The deception hypothesis, however, only applies if the audience indeed copies the pretended mate choice of the observed individual. So far, this necessary prerequisite has never been tested. We investigated in Atlantic molly males and females whether, first, focal fish show an audience effect, i.e., alter their mate choices in the presence of an audience fish, and second, whether audience fish copy the mate choice of the focal fish they had just witnessed. We found evidence that male and female Atlantic mollies copy the pretended mate choice of same-sex focal fish. Therefore, a necessary requirement of the deception hypothesis is fulfilled. Our results show that public information use in the context of mate choice can be costly.

Mate Choice and Mating Preferences

Mate Choice ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gil G. Rosenthal
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Mate Choice ◽  
Animal Communication ◽  
Mate Preferences ◽  
Unified Approach ◽  
Mating Preferences ◽  
Basic Framework ◽  
Preference Functions ◽  
Key Questions

This chapter first sets out the book's purpose, which is to present a conceptually unified approach to thinking about what Darwin termed the “taste for the beautiful.” It begins by describing a basic framework for thinking about mate choice and mate preferences. It then provides an outline for how the book attempts to address key questions about how they work, how they evolve, and how they act simultaneously as targets and agents of selection. Topics discussed include the meaning of mate choice; mate choice as distinct from sexual selection; preference and antipathy underlie realized mate choices; preference functions; stages of mate choice; and mate choice as a problem in animal communication.

scholarly journals Differences in male coloration are predicted by divergent sexual selection between populations of a cichlid fish

2016 ◽  
Vol 283 (1830) ◽  
pp. 20160172 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. M. Selz ◽  
R. Thommen ◽  
M. E. R. Pierotti ◽  
J. M. Anaya-Rojas ◽  
O. Seehausen
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Mate Choice ◽  
Assortative Mating ◽  
Cichlid Fish ◽  
Female Mate Choice ◽  
Population Based ◽  
Mating Preferences ◽  
Female Mating ◽  
Female Mating Preferences ◽  
Male Coloration

Female mating preferences can influence both intraspecific sexual selection and interspecific reproductive isolation, and have therefore been proposed to play a central role in speciation. Here, we investigate experimentally in the African cichlid fish Pundamilia nyererei if differences in male coloration between three para-allopatric populations (i.e. island populations with gene flow) of P. nyererei are predicted by differences in sexual selection by female mate choice between populations . Second, we investigate if female mating preferences are based on the same components of male coloration and go in the same direction when females choose among males of their own population, their own and other conspecific populations and a closely related para-allopatric sister-species, P. igneopinnis . Mate-choice experiments revealed that females of the three populations mated species-assortatively, that populations varied in their extent of population-assortative mating and that females chose among males of their own population based on different male colours. Females of different populations exerted directional intrapopulation sexual selection on different male colours, and these differences corresponded in two of the populations to the observed differences in male coloration between the populations. Our results suggest that differences in male coloration between populations of P. nyererei can be explained by divergent sexual selection and that population-assortative mating may directly result from intrapopulation sexual selection.

scholarly journals A comparison of two methods to assess audience-induced changes in male mate choice

2012 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madlen Ziege ◽  
Carmen Hennige-Schulz ◽  
Frauke Muecksch ◽  
David Bierbach ◽  
Ralph Tiedemann ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mate Choice ◽  
Sperm Competition ◽  
Mating Behavior ◽  
Mating Preferences ◽  
Poecilia Mexicana ◽  
Audience Effects ◽  
Rival Male ◽  
Focal Male ◽  
Sperm Competition Risk ◽  
Male Mate

Abstract Multidirectional communicative interactions in social networks can have a profound effect on mate choice behavior. Male Atlantic molly Poecilia mexicana exhibit weaker mating preferences when an audience male is presented. This could be a male strategy to reduce sperm competition risk: interacting more equally with different females may be advantageous because rivals might copy mate choice decisions. In line with this hypothesis, a previous study found males to show a strong audience effect when being observed while exercising mate choice, but not when the rival was presented only before the choice tests. Audience effects on mate choice decisions have been quantified in poeciliid fishes using association preference designs, but it remains unknown if patterns found from measuring association times translate into actual mating behavior. Thus, we created five audience treatments simulating different forms of perceived sperm competition risk and determined focal males’ mating preferences by scoring pre-mating (nipping) and mating behavior (gonopodial thrusting). Nipping did not reflect the pattern that was found when association preferences were measured, while a very similar pattern was uncovered in thrusting behavior. The strongest response was observed when the audience could eavesdrop on the focal male’s behavior. A reduction in the strength of focal males’ preferences was also seen after the rival male had an opportunity to mate with the focal male’s preferred mate. In comparison, the reduction of mating preferences in response to an audience was greater when measuring association times than actual mating behavior. While measuring direct sexual interactions between the focal male and both stimulus females not only the male’s motivational state is reflected but also females’ behavior such as avoidance of male sexual harassment.

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