Rational mate choice decisions vary with female age and multidimensional male signals in swordtails

Reding, Luke; Cummings, Molly E.

doi:10.1111/eth.12769

Cited by 8 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…Female choice based only on variation in body size was intransitive, and older females were more likely to be irrational than younger ones. However, all the females exhibited transitivity when their choice was based on courtship intensity or courtship intensity plus body size ( 86 ). Studies of crickets also showed that violation of transitivity was dependent on which acoustic cues were being evaluated ( 87 ).…”

Section: Cognition and Thinking About Mate Choicementioning

confidence: 99%

Darwin, sexual selection, and the brain

Ryan

2021

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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One hundred fifty years ago Darwin published The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, in which he presented his theory of sexual selection with its emphasis on sexual beauty. However, it was not until 50 y ago that there was a renewed interest in Darwin’s theory in general, and specifically the potency of mate choice. Darwin suggested that in many cases female preferences for elaborately ornamented males derived from a female’s taste for the beautiful, the notion that females were attracted to sexual beauty for its own sake. Initially, female mate choice attracted the interest of behavioral ecologists focusing on the fitness advantages accrued through mate choice. Subsequent studies focused on sensory ecology and signal design, often showing how sensory end organs influenced the types of traits females found attractive. Eventually, investigations of neural circuits, neurogenetics, and neurochemistry uncovered a more complete scaffolding underlying sexual attraction. More recently, research inspired by human studies in psychophysics, behavioral economics, and neuroaesthetics have provided some notion of its higher-order mechanisms. In this paper, I review progress in our understanding of Darwin’s conjecture of “a taste for the beautiful” by considering research from these diverse fields that have conspired to provide unparalleled insight into the chooser’s mate choices.

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Section: Cognition and Thinking About Mate Choicementioning

confidence: 99%

Darwin, sexual selection, and the brain

Ryan

2021

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Age-dependent decision-making processes have been documented among female poeciliids. For instance, relative to smaller females, larger and presumably older female El Abra swordtails show stronger preference for courting phenotypes over coercive phenotypes [46] and exhibit less transitivity in mate choice decisions involving male size [47]. Whether the increased exposure to male harassment over a female’s lifetime contributes to the development of fast-explorative female cognitive style can only be determined with manipulative social experiments.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sex differences in cognitive performance, style and domain relationships in mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis)

et al. 2019

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1 2 1 3 2 Highlights 1 4-Males and females perform at similar levels in associative learning and cognitive 1 5 flexibility assays, but females tend to outperform males on a spatio-temporal learning 1 6 task.1 7 -Female performance in associative learning trials (numerical discrimination task) can be 1 8 predicted by cognitive style behaviors (exploration, reaction time, and activity); whereas 1 9 male performance cannot. 2 0 -Males, but not females, show a predictive relationship between associative learning and 2 1 cognitive flexibility performance.2 2 -Our results demonstrate that sex differences in cognition extend beyond performance 2 3 into cognitive style and domain relationships, suggesting that investigations into animal 2 4 personality and cognition require more comprehensive characterization. Abstract 2 7Given that the sexes often differ in their ecological and sexual selection pressures, sex 2 8 differences in cognitive properties are likely. While research on sexually dimorphic cognition 2 9often focuses on performance, it commonly overlooks how sexes diverge across multiple 3 0 cognitive tasks (cognitive domains) and in behaviors associated with cognitive performance 3 1 (cognitive style). We tested male and female western mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis) in three 3 2 cognitive tasks: associative learning (numerical discrimination), cognitive flexibility (detour 3 3 task), and spatio-temporal learning (shuttlebox). We characterized statistical relationships 3 4 between cognitive performances and cognitive style during the associative learning task with 3 5 measures of anxiety, boldness, exploration, reaction time, and activity. We found sex 3 6 differences in performance, cognitive style, and the relationships between cognitive domains. 3 7

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“…The behavioral significance of stimuli is often context dependent, especially for communication signals. For example, responses to sexual signals may vary under different social, ecological, and physiological conditions ( Gall and Wilczynski 2015 ; Lea and Ryan 2015 ; Reding and Cummings 2017 , 2018 ), and in some contexts elicit no response at all ( Rand et al 1997 ). How might these different behavioral decisions result from the same stimuli?…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estrogenic Modulation of Retinal Sensitivity in Reproductive Female Túngara Frogs

Leslie

Walkowski

Rosencrans

et al. 2021

Integrative and Comparative Biology

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Although mate searching behavior in female túngara frogs (Physalaemus pustulosus) is nocturnal and largely mediated by acoustic cues, male signaling includes visual cues produced by the vocal sac. To compensate for these low light conditions, visual sensitivity in females is modulated when they are in a reproductive state, as retinal thresholds are decreased. This study tested whether estradiol (E2) plays a role in this modulation. Female túngara frogs were injected with either human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) or a combination of hCG and fadrozole. hCG induces a reproductive state and increases retinal sensitivity, while fadrozole is an aromatase inhibitor that blocks hCG-induced E2 synthesis. In an analysis of scotopic electroretinograms (ERGs), hCG treatment lowered the threshold for eliciting a b-wave response, whereas the addition of fadrozole abolished this effect, matching thresholds in non-reproductive saline-injected controls. This suggests that blocking E2 synthesis blocked the hCG-mediated reproductive modulation of retinal sensitivity. By implicating E2 in control of retinal sensitivity, our data add to growing evidence that the targets of gonadal steroid feedback loops include sensory receptor organs, where stimulus sensitivity may be modulated, rather than more central brain nuclei, where modulation may affect mechanisms involved in motivation.

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Rational mate choice decisions vary with female age and multidimensional male signals in swordtails

Cited by 8 publications

References 66 publications

Darwin, sexual selection, and the brain

Darwin, sexual selection, and the brain

Sex differences in cognitive performance, style and domain relationships in mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis)

Estrogenic Modulation of Retinal Sensitivity in Reproductive Female Túngara Frogs

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