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Females prefer to associate with males with longer intromittent organs in mosquitofish
- Source :
- Biology Letters. 6:55-58
- Publication Year :
- 2009
- Publisher :
- The Royal Society, 2009.
-
Abstract
- Sexual selection is a major force behind the rapid evolution of male genital morphology among species. Most within-species studies have focused on sexual selection on male genital traits owing to events during or after copulation that increase a male's share of paternity. Very little attention has been given to whether genitalia are visual signals that cause males to vary in their attractiveness to females and are therefore under pre-copulatory sexual selection. Here we show that, on average, female eastern mosquitofish Gambusia holbrooki spent more time in association with males who received only a slight reduction in the length of the intromittent organ (‘gonopodium’) than males that received a greater reduction. This preference was, however, only expressed when females chose between two large males; for small males, there was no effect of genital size on female association time.
- Subjects :
- Male
Australian Capital Territory
Antagonistic Coevolution
Genitalia, Male
Gambusia
Cyprinodontiformes
Animals
Body Size
Sex organ
Intromittent organ
Analysis of Variance
biology
Eastern mosquitofish
Organ Size
Anatomy
Mating Preference, Animal
biology.organism_classification
Biological Evolution
Agricultural and Biological Sciences (miscellaneous)
Mate choice
Sexual selection
Female
Animal Behaviour
General Agricultural and Biological Sciences
Mosquitofish
Demography
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 1744957X and 17449561
- Volume :
- 6
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Biology Letters
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....9ead54ebe1b0ceee618827d74eb5bfef