Female Sticklebacks Prefer To Spawn With Males Whose Nests Contain Eggs

Abstract

Does the presence of absence of eggs in a male stickleback's nest affect the chance that a female will spawn with him? Female threespined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) were presented alternatively to males with or to males without eggs. Our results show that the chance that a female will follow a male to his nest is unaffected by whether he has eggs. Once a female has reached the nest, she can either enter it and spawn, or back out and refuse. There was a tendency for females to be more likely to spawn than to refuse if the nest contained eggs. In a sequential choice experiment females that had refused a male without eggs were then presented to a second male, either with eggs or, as a control, without eggs. Females were significantly more likely to spawn with the second male if he possessed eggs. The finding that females prefer to spawn with males with eggs suggests functional explanations for female refusal, male egg kidnapping, and male 'displacement fanning'.

Is egg carrying attractive? Mate choice in the golden egg bug (Coreidae, Heteroptera)

“…In species where males carry out some, or all, of the parental care, females may choose males on the basis of their capacity to do so (Halliday 1978). In a variety of ¢sh species where males care for eggs in nests, females show a strong preference for males that have accumulated many eggs (Ridley & Rechten 1981;Constanz 1985;Marconato & Bisazza 1986;Knapp & Sargent 1989;Ungern & Sargent 1988;Kraak & Videler 1991;Kraak & Groothuis 1994;Kraak & Weissing 1996). Since these species exhibit external fertilization, it is di¤cult to test what choice a female is making because the choice of oviposition site cannot be separated from the choice of mate.…”

Mate choice in lekking sage grouse revisited: the roles of vocal display, female site fidelity, and copying

“…The rate at which females entered harems also increased with harem size in both fallow deer (Clutton-Brock et al, 1989) and Uganda kob (Balmford, 1990). These observations are highly suggestive of copying, but they might also have arisen because both harem size and arrival rates were related to a third variable such as male display rate (see also Jamieson and Colgan, 1989;Ridley and Rechten, 1981).…”

Investimento parental e papéis sexuais em opiliões com cuidado paternal exclusivo

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