Abstract
Sexual selection drives the evolution of exaggerated male ornaments in many animal species. Female ornamentation is now acknowledged also to be common but is generally less well understood. One example is the recently documented red female throat coloration in some threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) populations. Although female sticklebacks often exhibit a preference for red male throat coloration, the possibility of sexual selection on female coloration has been little studied. Using sequential and simultaneous mate choice trials, we examined male mate preferences for female throat color, as well as pelvic spine color and standard length, using wild-captured threespine sticklebacks from the Little Campbell River, British Columbia. In a multivariate analysis, we found no evidence for a population-level mate preference in males, suggesting the absence of directional sexual selection on these traits arising from male mate choice. Significant variation was detected among males in their preference functions, but this appeared to arise from differences in their mean responsiveness across mating trials and not from variation in the strength (i.e., slope) of their preference, suggesting the absence of individual-level preferences as well. When presented with conspecific intruder males, male response decreased as intruder red throat coloration increased, suggesting that males can discriminate color and other aspects of phenotype in our experiment and that males may use these traits in intrasexual interactions. The results presented here are the first to explicitly address male preference for female throat color in threespine sticklebacks.
Highlights
There is abundant evidence that sexual selection underlies the evolution of exaggerated male ornamentation in manyPLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0120723 March 25, 2015Males Preferences for Female Ornaments animal species[1]
There was no evidence of a population-level mate preference in males for female spine color or standard length (Table 1), suggesting the absence of any directional sexual selection on these traits arising from male mate choice
There was some evidence that males became more responsive to females in later trials, suggesting perhaps that they were acclimating to the lab or test conditions, or that their desire to mate was increasing across trials
Summary
There is abundant evidence that sexual selection underlies the evolution of exaggerated male ornamentation (traits showing little to no function outside of social interactions) in many. Males Preferences for Female Ornaments animal species[1]. Female ornamentation varies greatly across taxa, and is sometimes as conspicuous as in males. The presence of similar ornamental traits in the females of many animal species remains a poorly understood phenomenon. It is widely thought that male reproductive success is limited principally by the number of mates that can be obtained [2], making male ornamentation important for attracting females and/or intimidating rival males. Females on the other hand, should rarely need to compete for mates and sexual selection favoring female ornamentation should be weaker or absent. Females in a wide variety of species are known to possess such adornments[3], including birds[4,5,6], reptiles [7,8], insects[9], and fish[10,11,12]
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