Male lagoon gobies, <Emphasis Type="Italic">Knipowitschia panizzae</Emphasis>, prefer more ornamented to larger females |
| |
Authors: | Matteo Pizzolon Maria B Rasotto Carlotta Mazzoldi |
| |
Institution: | (1) Department of Biology, University of Padova, via U. Bassi 58/B, Padova, 35131, Italy |
| |
Abstract: | Female ornamentation may be directly sexually selected, by male choice or female competition, or occurs as the result of a
genetic correlation, arising from sexual selection on males. However, increasing evidence supports the former hypothesis,
suggesting that males actively choose their partner preferring traits indicative of female quality. In the lagoon goby, Knipowitschia panizzae, a polygynous species whose males perform parental care to eggs, body length and the size of a sex-specific yellow patch
on the belly are known to be reliable indicators of female fecundity. In this paper, we tested, using dummies, the male’s
mating preferences for female body and yellow belly patch sizes. The two experimental trials in which a single female trait
was variable showed that males prefer a larger belly patch and a larger body size, indicating that both these characters are
selected by male mate choice. However, when faced with dummies exhibiting an inverse combination of body and belly patch sizes
(experiment 3), males significantly preferred the smaller ones with larger yellow belly patches. A calculation of dummy theoretical
fecundity reveals that in the first two experiments, males would have received an immediate benefit from their choice in terms
of egg number, whereas in the third one, males chose partners that would have provided them with fewer eggs. The male lagoon
goby preference for females with larger belly patches, regardless of their size, suggests that this trait, in addition to
indicating fecundity, conveys information about other aspects of female and/or egg quality. |
| |
Keywords: | Female ornament Mate choice Multiple signals Fecundity Teleost |
本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|