Females prefer to associate with males with longer intromittent organs in mosquitofish |
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Authors: | Andrew T. Kahn Brian Mautz Michael D. Jennions |
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Affiliation: | Research School of Biology, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 0200, Australia |
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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. |
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Keywords: | Gambusia genital evolution female choice Poeciliidae sexual selection |
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