Female mate choice in a mating system dominated by male sexual coercion

In poeciliid fishes, males can gain copulation either by courtingfemales or through sexual coercion. In some species these twotactics coexist. However, in about half of the poeciliids,males do not display, females never cooperate during copulationand all matings are achieved by thrusting the intromittentorgan toward the genital pore of apparently unaware females.In one of these species, the eastern mosquitofish (Gambusiaholbrooki), the probability of insemination is influenced bythe time females are previously deprived of males, suggestingthat females exert some control over the occurrence of matingeven in a system apparently dominated by sexual coercion. Inthe present study we investigated the tendency of female mosquitofishto approach males in relation to their reproductive status and the time they were previously deprived of males. The tendencyto approach males increased in females that were previouslydeprived of males and in females that had recently given birth.When allowed to choose between males, male-deprived femalespreferred larger males and normally pigmented over melanisticmales. Females preferred groups of three males over a singlemale, whereas the preference for three males over a group ofone male and two females was only marginally significant. Collectively,these results suggest that, even when coercive mating is theonly tactic adopted by males, females may be able to influencethe outcome of these attempts, and thus exert some controlover the paternity of their offspring.     

Male mate choice and sperm allocation in a sexual/asexual mating complex of Poecilia (Poeciliidae, Teleostei)

Male mate choice is critical for understanding the evolution and maintenance of sexual/asexual mating complexes involving sperm-dependent, gynogenetic species. Amazon mollies (Poecilia formosa) require sperm to trigger embryogenesis, but the males (e.g. Poecilia mexicana) do not contribute genes. Males benefit from mating with Amazon mollies, because such matings make males more attractive to conspecific females, but they might control the cost of such matings by providing less sperm to Amazon mollies. We examined this at the behavioural and sperm levels. P. mexicana males preferred to mate with, and transferred more sperm to conspecific females. However, if males mated with P. formosa, sperm was readily transferred. This underscores the importance of male choice in this system.     

Male mating constraints affect mutual mate choice: prudent male courting and sperm-limited females

Costs of sperm production may lead to prudence in male sperm allocation and also to male mate choice. Here, we develop a life history-based mutual mate choice model that takes into account the lost-opportunity costs for males from time out in sperm recovery and lets mate competition be determined by the prevailing mate choice strategies. We assume that high mating rate may potentially lead to sperm depletion in males, and that as a result, female reproduction may be limited by the availability of sperm. Increasing variation in male quality leads, in general, to increased selective mate choice by females, and vice versa. Lower-quality males may, however, gain access to more fecund higher-quality females by lowering their courting rate, thus increasing their sperm reserves. When faced with strong male competition for mates, low-quality males become less choosy, which leads to assortative mating for quality and an increased mating rate across all males. With assortative mating, the frequency of antagonistic interactions (sexual conflict) is reduced, allowing males to lower the time spent replenishing sperm reserves in order to increase mating rate. This in turn leads to lower sperm levels at mating and therefore could lead to negative effects on female fitness via sperm limitation.     

Female pied flycatchers trade between male quality and mating status in mate choice

According to mate choice theory, females should consider both male quality and mating status when choosing a mate. In birds, strong experimental evidence indicates that females prefer males with elaborate traits. No comparable evidence exists to determine whether females take male mating status into account or how they may trade between male quality and male mating status. We studied mate choice of female pied flycatchers (Ficedula hypoleuca) in outdoor aviaries where the effect of territory quality could be eliminated and where we could control which males were mated and which were unmated. We used male plumage colour as our measure of male quality. In the aviaries, focal females could easily compare males and assess their plumage colour and mating status, and resident females were prevented from attacking prospecting females because of separation in different compartments. The study provided evidence for a trade-off in mate choice. Females may compromise by choosing an already mated male if he is more brightly coloured and, presumably, of higher quality than available unmated males. The study did not support the idea that polygyny is based on male deception of females, but the results were consistent with the female aggression hypothesis.     

Female mate assessment and choice behavior affect the frequency of alternative male mating tactics

Explanations for the existence of alternative male mating tacticsfocus primarily on male–male competition. Mating systems,however, are composed of interactions both within and betweenthe sexes, and the role of female behavior in shaping male matingtactics should not be overlooked. By using a dynamic state variablegame model, I examine how female mate assessment and choicebehavior affect the frequency of alternative male mating tactics.When females can accurately assess the quality of males, onlymales with high quality are likely to be chosen as mates, andthus, lower-quality males gain little fitness from courtingfemales. This leads lower-quality males to switch to an alternativemating tactic that attempts to circumvent female mate choice.In contrast, if the abilities of females to accurately assessmales are constrained by assessment costs, imperfect information,or time constraints, or if the pool of available males is smaller,then lower-quality males are increasingly chosen as mates andthey less often use alternative mating tactics. Thus, femalebehavior shapes the frequency of alternative male mating tactics.A consequence of this game between the sexes is that male behavior(i.e., increased alternative mating tactics) decreases the benefitsfemales might otherwise gain from lower assessment costs, clearersignals of male quality, more time to choose a male, and moremales from which to choose a mate.     

Female mate choice is not affected by mate condition in a fish with male care

Several studies have shown that mate choice based on condition leads to higher reproductive success of the choosing individual. Yet, a growing body of literature has failed to find support for mate choice based on mate condition, even when the choosing individual would clearly benefit from such a choice. This indicates that animals’ mate choice is often more complex than currently appreciated and that even well-founded expected preferences cannot be taken for granted. Using the broad-nosed pipefish, Syngnathus typhle, we manipulated male condition experimentally to explore whether it affects female mate choice. In this sex-role-reversed species, males care for the offspring in a specialised brood pouch. Males are the choosier sex, but given the opportunity, females are selective as well. During brooding, males can both provide embryos with nutrients and take up nutrients that originate from eggs deposited in the pouch, and embryo survival correlates positively with male condition. Together, this suggests that it would be beneficial for females to mate with males in high condition. However, we found no female preference for males in better condition. Thus, this study adds to the literature of mate choice that is unaffected by mate condition. Possible reasons for our result are discussed.     

Choosy males in a haplochromine cichlid: first experimental evidence for male mate choice in a lekking species

Current theories of mate choice predict that the level of choosiness of males and females will depend on their relative investment in parental care. Males often invest less than females and are expected to be less choosy, especially in lekking species where males contribute only sperm. Our study of the haplochromine cichlid fish Astatotilapia flaviijosephi, a maternal mouthbrooder, provides the first experimental evidence for male mate choice in a lekking species. In this species the number of eggs spawned is positively correlated with female weight, thus making larger females potentially better mates. In the laboratory, we conducted a simultaneous choice experiment where males had the opportunity to associate with, and court, each of two females that differed in size. Males preferred to court the larger female and spent more time courting during experimental trials involving larger females. This selective allocation of courtship effort to more attractive (i.e. heavier) females suggests that there may be constraints on males in fertilizing multiple females, thus compelling them to be choosy.Copyright 2003 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.      

Strategic male mating effort and cryptic male choice in a scorpionfly

In animal species with high male mating effort, males often find themselves in a dilemma: by increasing their mating effort, the gain from each copulation increases but simultaneously reduces available resources and, thus, the opportunity for future copulations. Therefore, we expect males to spend less reproductive resources on matings that provide low reproductive potential, thereby saving resources for future copulations, possibly with high-quality females, a sort of cryptic male choice. However, the strength of the trade-off between investment in a current mating and resources available for future matings must not be the same for all males. Males with relatively high mating costs should allocate their limited resources more cautiously than males with more plentiful resources. Here, we examine this prediction in the scorpionfly Panorpa cognata. Prior to copulation, males produce a large salivary mass on which females feed during copulation. We show that the production of larger salivary masses leads to longer copulations. Moreover, the size of the salivary gland and salivary mass increases with increasing male condition. However, males in poor condition make a relatively higher mating investment than males in good condition. We therefore expect male condition to influence cryptic male choice. In accordance with our hypothesis, only males in poor condition choose cryptically, producing larger salivary masses in copulations with females of high fecundity.     

Multiple mating and sequential mate choice in guppies: females trade up

The trade-up hypothesis outlines a behavioural strategy that females could use to maximize the genetic benefits to their offspring. The hypothesis proposes that females should be more willing to accept a mate when the new male encountered is a superior genetic source to previous mates. We provide a direct test of the trade-up hypothesis using guppies (Poecilia reticulata), and evaluate both behavioural and paternity data. Virgin female guppies were presented sequentially with two males of varying attractiveness, and their responsiveness to each male was quantified. Male attractiveness (ornamentation) was scored as the amount of orange coloration on their body. Females were generally less responsive to second-encountered males, yet responsiveness to second males was an increasing function of male ornamentation. These attractive second males also sired a greater proportion of the offspring. There was an overall tendency for last-male advantage in paternity, and this advantage was most exaggerated when the second male was more ornamented than the first. Finally, we found that our estimate of relative sperm number did not account for any significant variation in paternity. Our results suggest that female guppies may use pre-copulatory mechanisms to maximize the genetic quality of their offspring.     

Sex differences in cognition and their relationship to male mate choice

Male cognition has gained recognition as an important potential player in sexual selection. A number of studies have found positive correlations between male sexual signals and cognitive performance an d/or female pref ere nces for males with better cog nitive performance, although other studies have not fou nd these relati on ships. Sex roles can differ dramatically, and sex differen ces in selection on cog nition likely follow from the different tasks associated with these sex roles. Here, using threespine stickleback Gasterosteus aculeatus, a species with clearly diverge nt sex roles and mutual mate choice, we focus on the cognitive trait inhibitory control because males must differentially respond to reproductive females versus other sticklebacks while defending territories and refrain from eating eggs and fry while performing paternal care. We presented fish with a detour task four times over a period of 7 days, allowing us to assess initial inhibitory control and improvement over time. We ask 1) whether there are sex differences in inhibitory control and 2) whether male mate choice is associated with female inhibitory control. Although males outperformed females on three different measures of detour task performance across four trials, these differences were largely explained by males being less neophobic than females. Females took more trials to successfully solve the detour task, even after accounting for sex differences in neophobia. Female cognitive abilities, however, were unrelated to the vigor with which males courted them. The equivocal results regarding sex differences in cognitive ability suggest further study given the very different selection pressures each sex experiences.     

Female mate choice across spatial scales: influence of lek and male attributes on mating success of blue-crowned manakins

Lekking males compete for females within and among leks, yet female choice is expected to work differently at each of these spatial scales. We used paternity analyses to examine how lek versus male attributes influence mate choice in the blue-crowned manakin Lepidothrix coronata. We tested the hypotheses that females prefer (i) to mate at larger leks where a larger number of potential mates can be assessed, (ii) to mate with unrelated or highly heterozygous males expected to produce high-quality offspring, (iii) to mate with males that display at higher rates, and that (iv) display honestly reflects male genetic quality. Our results show that (i) males at larger leks are not more likely to sire young, although females nesting close to small leks travel further to reach larger leks, (ii) siring males are not less related to females or more heterozygous than expected, (iii) within a lek, high-display males are more likely to sire young, and (iv) both male heterozygosity and display rate increased with lek size, and as a result display does not reliably reflect male genetic quality across leks. We suggest that female mate choice in this species is probably driven by a Fisherian process rather than adaptive genetic benefits.     

Female mate choice and male red coloration in a natural three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) population

Under laboratory conditions, female three-spined sticklebacks(Gasterosteus aculeatus L.) show a mating preference for intenselyred-colored males. We verified this female choice in the fieldby observing a freshwater stickleback population in its naturalhabitat. During the egg collection phase, individual courtingmales were localized with the aid of a dummy of a ripe female,caught and photographed under standardized conditions, and released.After males had stopped collecting eggs, we counted the numberof eggs in the nests. The more intense a male's red breedingcoloration, the more eggs he received. Simultaneous female choiceexperiments in the laboratory suggested that ripe females ofthis population preferred redder males. Breeding activitiesof the males in the field were clustered and seem to be synchronizedwithin clusters. At one of the breeding sites, more intensered males were in better physical condition, but this was notthe case at another site. Although several synchronized breedingcycles were observed, the majority of males seem to completeonly one breeding cycle.     

Female choice and the benefits of mate guarding by male mallards

Pair formation and breeding in many species of waterfowl are separated both temporally and spatially. Most studies of female choice in this group have focused on male characteristics at the time of pairing, with less attention given to how mate choice affects breeding season outcomes. In this study I compared pairing success, male plasma testosterone level and mate-guarding ability of male mallards, Anas platyrhynchos, in two experiments. In the first experiment females and males were group housed with equal sex ratios, thus allowing all of these males to pair. At the same time, an equal number of males was housed in groups without access to females and remained unpaired. In this experiment testosterone levels of paired and unpaired males during autumn (baseline) and spring (breeding) did not differ, indicating that the process of pair formation and breeding does not cause elevated spring testosterone levels in males. However, testosterone did temporarily decrease in paired males during the winter (pair formation) season. In the second experiment groups were male biased, allowing only half of the males to pair. Here paired males had significantly higher testosterone levels than unpaired males during the breeding season, but not during the preceding autumn. Together the results of these experiments indicate that successful pair formation predicts but does not alter male testosterone level during the breeding season. I also found that females paired to males with high levels of testosterone were missing fewer feathers due to forced copulation attempts by nonmates, suggesting that females may choose males based on their mate-guarding abilities. Copyright 2002 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.     

Female mate choice tactics in a resource-based mating system: field tests of alternative models

Abstract In this study we test theoretical models of female mate choice tactics in natural populations of pine engravers, Ips pini (Say) (Coleoptera: Scolytidae), a species with a resource-based mating system and high search costs. We first develop distinguishing predictions for each of four models of mate choice: random, comparison tactics, and fixed and adjustable thresholds. These predictions relate to commonly collected field data that include the visiting behavior of females and the quality of accepted and rejected mates. Using these types of data, we conclude that pine engravers use an adjustable threshold mate choice tactic because females often accepted the first male encountered, rarely revisited males, visited similar numbers of males in patches of different quality, accepted higher-quality males than those they rejected even on their first encounter with a male in a patch, and had higher acceptance thresholds in high-quality patches than in low-quality patches. This adjustable threshold tactic is consistent with a one-step decision rule and is predicted to occur in species such as pine engravers in which search costs are high and females have information about patch quality before beginning a search in a patch.     

Sex recognition and mate choice by male Bufo gargarizans in central China

Mate choice is important for successful reproduction, and consequently species have evolved various ways to choose potential high-quality mates. Anuran mate choice and underlying processes have been the subject of several recent investigations, however we are far from a complete understanding of mate choice in this system. In the present study, when given a simultaneous choice between a male and a female of identical size, males did not discriminate between the sexes, and attempted to clasp a male or a female with equal frequency. Test males only released the stimulus toad when a release call was emitted by the stimulus male. When two males with distinct size differences were provided with a male, the male chose the larger one. Moreover, males discriminated between gravid females that differed in body size, choosing larger gravid females over smaller ones. These results suggest that male Bufo gargarizans can discriminate between the sexes, probably based on male release calls, and prefer to mate with larger individual using visual cues.     

Nonindependent mating in a coral reef damselfish: evidence of mate choice copying in the wild

Theoretical and experimental studies have shown that mate choicecopying is a viable mating strategy under certain conditions.Copying experiments in fish have been conducted primarily inthe laboratory, except for one study conducted in the fieldunder artificial conditions. We investigated whether in a wildpopulation of the coral reef whitebelly damselfish (Amblyglyphidodonleucogaster) females copy the choice of other females. Femalespreferentially spawn with males that have recently mated. Todetermine if the presence of new eggs in the nest was the reasonfemales chose mates or whether females were mate choice copying,we conducted egg-switching experiments. Eggs from males thatrecently mated were donated to males that had no eggs. If femalesare mate choice copying, then donor males with no eggs in thenest should continue to receive additional eggs. If femalesare using the presence of new eggs as the criterion for matechoice, then foster males with new eggs should receive additionaleggs. We found that donor males received new eggs significantlymore often than expected. More females mated with donor malesthan foster males. Furthermore, females preferentially choseto mate with males whom they had seen mating with another female.Females appear to remember the mate choice of other femalesand choose to mate with those same males even after 1 day. Theseresults suggest that females may be copying the mating decisionof other females rather than choosing males based on the presenceof new eggs in the nest.     

Correlates of male mating success and female choice in a lek-breeding antelope

We investigated factors underlying variation in male matingsuccess in Uganda kob (Kobus kob thomasi), a lek-breeding antelope.We found that only heavy (and, possibly, relatively old) malesheld lek territories and that female choice was an importantdeterminant of nonrandom mating patterns at leks. Our measureof male mating success was closely related to the historicalpopularity of the territory that a male defended, and individualfemales showed consistent preferences for particular lek territories,despite changes in territory ownership. Male success increasedwith body weight and declined independently of territory effectsduring each bout of lek territory tenure. We also found someevidence that female kob copied one another's choice of matesbecause females arriving at a lek tended to join territoriesthat already had relatively large harems on them. When comparedacross leks, average male mating success increased with leksize. Our results suggest that female kob may use a suite ofmale- and territory-based cues in mate choice at leks and, asa result, mate with particularly large males. However, we wereunable to determine whether female kob gain any direct or indirectbenefits through mate choice at leks.