TY  - JOUR
A1  - Sommer-Trembo, Carolin
A1  - Plath, Martin
A1  - Gismann, Jakob
A1  - Helfrich, Claudia
A1  - Bierbach, David
T1  - Context-dependent female mate choice maintains variation in male sexual activity
T2  - Royal Society open science
N2  - The existence of individual variation in males' motivation to mate remains a conundrum as directional selection should favour high mating frequencies. Balancing selection resulting from (context-dependent) female mate choice could contribute to the maintenance of this behavioural polymorphism. In dichotomous choice tests, mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki) females preferred virtual males showing intermediate mating frequencies, reflecting females' tendencies to avoid harassment by highly sexually active males. When tested in the presence of a female shoal—which protects females from male harassment—focal females showed significantly stronger preferences for high sexual activity. A trade-off between (indirect) benefits and (direct) costs of mating with sexually active males probably explains context-dependent female mate choice, as costs depend on the social environment in which females choose their mates. No preference was observed when we tested virgin females, suggesting that the behavioural pattern described here is part of the learned behavioural repertoire of G. holbrooki females.
Y1  - 2017
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/44517
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-445174
SN  - 2054-5703
N1  - Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
VL  - 4
IS  - 170303
PB  - Royal Soc. Publ.
CY  - London
ER  -