Reproductive behavior and the maintenance of all-female Poecilia

Synopsis There are four members involved in the breeding complexes of poeciliid fishes found in the freshwaters of northeastern Mexico: males and females of a bisexual species, and diploid and triploid unisexuals. Both unisexuals reproduce by gynogenesis, i.e., an asexual type of reproduction where the sperm triggers egg development but the male genome is excluded to produce clonal offspring. The three types of females are closely related, which suggests that they are potential competitors since all three require the service of the same males. The potential for competition is compounded by a highly skewed sex ratio in favor of females. On the average the unisexuals comprise about 30% of the Poecilia females. This high frequency coupled with a close genetic relatedness to their bisexual hosts, raises the question of how the unisexuals are maintained in nature.Other investigators who work with bisexual/unisexual complexes in the related genus, Poeciliopsis, have postulated that male dominance hierarchies are responsible for restricting the access of subordinate males to their conspecific females. Consequently, these subordinate males mate with unisexual females. The current report tests whether or not this hypothesis applies to bisexual/unisexual complexes of Poecilia.We have found that linear dominance hierarchies appear to function in the defense of home ranges and do not restrict access of males to females. Dominant males exhibit less mating activity than subordinate males towards females. Previous reports showed that males are reproductively competent throughout the year, whereas females show striking asynchrony in their reproductive readiness. Such asynchrony limits the proportion of receptive females at any one time. Consequently, there are more males ready to mate than there are females receptive to their mating attempts. This may lead to mating frenzies. We postulate that these indiscriminate matings maintain the fertility of both unisexuals. When the relative reproductive outputs of adult females are compared, both unisexuals appear as fit as their bisexual congeners.