Unexpected female preference for smaller males in the marbled goby <i>Pomatoschistus marmoratus</i>

Locatello, Lisa; Mazzoldi, Carlotta; Santon, Matteo; Sparaciari, S.; Rasotto, Maria Berica

doi:10.1111/jfb.13055

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 32 publications

(40 reference statements)

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“…An individual's mate preference is thus a result of a combination of multiple traits including the quality of their potential mate (Hebets et al, 2008;Schultzhaus et al, 2017). Quality of the individual is known to be affected by multiple factors such as age (Avent et al, 2008;Anjos-Duarte et al, 2011), size (Downhower and Brown, 1980;Tina and Muramatsu, 2015;Locatello . CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license made available under a (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of egg cannibalism on mating preferences and reproductive fitness of Menochilus sexmaculatus Fabricius (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae)

Yadav

Omkar

Mishra

2021

Journal of Asia-Pacific Entomology

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of egg cannibalism on mating preferences and reproductive fitness of Menochilus sexmaculatus Fabricius (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae)

Yadav

Omkar

Mishra

2021

Journal of Asia-Pacific Entomology

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“…Indeed, females do not always commence preferences for larger stimuli. In Pomatoschistus marmoratus , females preferred the smaller male and did not care about nest size when male–male competition was experimentally excluded ( Locatello et al. 2016 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Female mating competition alters female mating preferences in common gobies

Heubel

2018

Current Zoology

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Mating decisions can be affected by intrasexual competition and sensitive to operational sex-ratio (OSR) changes in the population. Conceptually, it is assumed that both male and female mate-competition may interfere with female reproductive decisions. Experimentally, however, the focus has been on the effect of male competition on mate choice. In many species with paternal care as in the common goby Pomatoschistus microps, the OSR is often female-biased and female mate-competition for access to available nesting males occurs. Using the same protocol for 3 experiments testing the effect of a perceived risk of female mate-competition, I studied female preferences for nest-holding males differing in its nest size (large/small), body size (large/small), and nest status (with/without eggs already in nest) and measured mating decisions, spawning latencies, and clutch size. Regardless of the social context, females preferred males with larger nests. A preference for large males was only expressed in presence of additional females. For nest status, there was a tendency for females to prefer mating with males with an empty nest. Here, female–female competition increased the propensity to mate. The results of this study show that females are sensitive to a female competitive social environment and suggest that in choice situations, females respond to the social context mainly by mating decisions per se rather than by adjusting the clutch size or spawning latency. Females base their mating decisions not only on a male’s nest size but also on male size as an additional cue of mate quality in the presence of additional females.

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“…Important contributions to mating dynamics and sexual selection have also been made on several other species, including the closely related painted gobies P. pictus (e.g., Amorim and Neves 2008 ; Amorim et al. 2013 ), marbled gobies P. marmoratus ( Locatello et al. 2016 ) and lagoon gobies Knipowitschia panizzae (e.g., Mazzoldi et al.…”

Section: Gobies As Model Organismsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sex roles and sexual selection: lessons from a dynamic model system

Amundsen

2018

Current Zoology

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Our understanding of sexual selection has greatly improved during the last decades. The focus is no longer solely on males, but also on how female competition and male mate choice shape ornamentation and other sexually selected traits in females. At the same time, the focus has shifted from documenting sexual selection to exploring variation and spatiotemporal dynamics of sexual selection, and their evolutionary consequences. Here, I review insights from a model system with exceptionally dynamic sexual selection, the two-spotted goby fish Gobiusculus flavescens. The species displays a complete reversal of sex roles over a 3-month breeding season. The reversal is driven by a dramatic change in the operational sex ratio, which is heavily male-biased at the start of the season and heavily female-biased late in the season. Early in the season, breeding-ready males outnumber mature females, causing males to be highly competitive, and leading to sexual selection on males. Late in the season, mating-ready females are in excess, engage more in courtship and aggression than males, and rarely reject mating opportunities. With typically many females simultaneously courting available males late in the season, males become selective and prefer more colorful females. This variable sexual selection regime likely explains why both male and female G. flavescens have ornamental colors. The G. flavescens model system reveals that sexual behavior and sexual selection can be astonishingly dynamic in response to short-term fluctuations in mating competition. Future work should explore whether sexual selection is equally dynamic on a spatial scale, and related spatiotemporal dynamics.

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Unexpected female preference for smaller males in the marbled goby Pomatoschistus marmoratus

Cited by 5 publications

References 32 publications

Effect of egg cannibalism on mating preferences and reproductive fitness of Menochilus sexmaculatus Fabricius (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae)

Effect of egg cannibalism on mating preferences and reproductive fitness of Menochilus sexmaculatus Fabricius (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae)

Female mating competition alters female mating preferences in common gobies

Sex roles and sexual selection: lessons from a dynamic model system

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