Evol Ecol Res 13: 145-157 (2011)     Full PDF if your library subscribes.

Repeatability of female preferences in a unisexual–bisexual mating system

Caitlin R. Gabor, Michelle H. Parmley and Andrea S. Aspbury

Department of Biology, Texas State University – San Marcos, San Marcos, Texas, USA

Correspondence: C. Gabor, Department of Biology, Texas State University – San Marcos, San Marcos, TX 78666-4615, USA.
e-mail: gabor@txstate.edu

ABSTRACT

Background: A gynogenetic species is a hybrid species in which females must mate with males of their parental species to initiate egg development, but inheritance is strictly maternal.

Question: Is the mating preference of an all-female, gynogenetic fish and its parental species repeatable?

Organisms: The Amazon molly, Poecilia formosa, is a livebearing gynogenetic fish of hybrid origin. Its parental species are P. latipinna (paternal) and P. mexicana (maternal).

Methods: We examined and compared the repeatability in preferences of P. formosa and female P. latipinna for larger vs. smaller P. latipinna males. We also examined the repeatability of female P. mexicana preference for large male P. mexicana. Repeatability relates variation within individuals to the variation between individuals. We related measures of consistency to individual preferences to examine whether female preferences were unanimous.

Conclusions: Females of all three species showed population-level mean preferences for larger males. Repeatability of the preference was low for Amazon mollies even though they are a clonal species. The maternal parental species, P. mexicana, also showed low repeatability but females of P. latipinna showed high repeatability in preference for large males, but their preferences were not unanimous.

Keywords: livebearing, mate choice, Poecilia formosa, Poecilia latipinna, Poecilia mexicana, repeatability.

DOWNLOAD A FREE, FULL PDF COPY
IF you are connected using the IP of a subscribing institution (library, laboratory, etc.)
or through its VPN.

 

        © 2011 Caitlin R. Gabor. All EER articles are copyrighted by their authors. All authors endorse, permit and license Evolutionary Ecology Ltd. to grant its subscribing institutions/libraries the copying privileges specified below without additional consideration or payment to them or to Evolutionary Ecology, Ltd. These endorsements, in writing, are on file in the office of Evolutionary Ecology, Ltd. Consult authors for permission to use any portion of their work in derivative works, compilations or to distribute their work in any commercial manner.

       Subscribing institutions/libraries may grant individuals the privilege of making a single copy of an EER article for non-commercial educational or non-commercial research purposes. Subscribing institutions/libraries may also use articles for non-commercial educational purposes by making any number of copies for course packs or course reserve collections. Subscribing institutions/libraries may also loan single copies of articles to non-commercial libraries for educational purposes.

       All copies of abstracts and articles must preserve their copyright notice without modification.