Sangam: A Confluence of Knowledge Streams

Male phenotypic diversity experienced during ontogeny mediates female mate choice in guppies

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dc.creator Macario, A
dc.creator Croft, DP
dc.creator Darden, S
dc.date 2018-11-23T11:08:09Z
dc.date 2019-01-18
dc.date.accessioned 2022-05-27T01:03:03Z
dc.date.available 2022-05-27T01:03:03Z
dc.identifier Published online 18 January 2019.
dc.identifier 10.1093/beheco/ary186
dc.identifier http://hdl.handle.net/10871/34884
dc.identifier 1465-7279
dc.identifier Behavioral Ecology
dc.identifier.uri http://localhost:8080/xmlui/handle/CUHPOERS/241924
dc.description This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Oxford University Press via the DOI in this record.
dc.description Early social experience can be important in shaping female mate choice. Previous work has shown that females adjust their decisions based on the distribution of male sexual trait values encountered during development. However, other phenotypic features could be important in the formation of mate preferences if, for example, they provide additional information about the males available. Here, we examined how the level of overall phenotypic variance (independent of trait values) experienced during ontogeny, mediated female choice in guppies, Poecilia reticulata. Developing females were reared with males either all different in colouration or all similar in colouration or with adult females representing high variance, low variance and no experience of male variance respectively. We found that females were more sexually responsive when reared with females only than in either of the male treatments. When reared with males, responsiveness was greater in the low-variance compared to the high variance treatment. Moreover, females had stronger sexual preferences following rearing in the high variance compared to the low variance condition. In turn, males switched mating tactics, increasing the rate of coerced copulation attempts when facing choosier females, possibly to balance the loss in mating opportunities. Taken together, these results demonstrate the adaptive plasticity of female mating decisions and the dynamic selection pressures they might impose on the evolution of male sexual traits, potentially contributing to the maintenance of the extreme polymorphism found in male colour patterns.
dc.description This work was supported by the University of Exeter through an Exeter Graduate Fellow studentship.
dc.language en
dc.publisher Oxford University Press (OUP) for International Society for Behavioral Ecology
dc.rights © The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Society for Behavioral Ecology. All rights reserved.
dc.rights 2020-01-18
dc.rights Under embargo until 18 January 2020 in compliance with publisher policy.
dc.subject Mate choice
dc.subject early social environment
dc.subject ontogeny
dc.subject adaptive plasticity
dc.subject colour pattern polymorphism
dc.subject Poecilia reticulata
dc.title Male phenotypic diversity experienced during ontogeny mediates female mate choice in guppies
dc.type Article


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