Life-Long Experience with Male Mating Tactics Shapes Spatial Cognition and Coercion Evasion in Female Swordtails

Abstract

Social experiences can shape adult behavior and cognition. Here, we use El Abra swordtails (Xiphophorus nigrensis) to assess how life-long experience with different male mating tactics shapes coercion evasion ability and female spatial cognition. We raised females from birth to adulthood in environments that varied by male mating tactic: coercers only, courtship displayers only, coercers and displayers together, mixed-strategists, and female only. In adulthood, we tested females’ behavioral responses to a coercive male and spatial cognition in a maze. Females reared with only displayers were significantly worse at distancing themselves from the coercive male than females raised with coercers and displayers and females raised with only coercers. Females raised with a single mating tactic (either courtship display or coercion) exhibited significantly higher accuracy in the spatial maze than females from other rearing groups, and showed significant reduction in total errors (courtship display group) or latency to reward (coercion group) over successive trials. These more predictable environments (one tactic), and not the more complex environments (two tactics), showed evidence for spatial learning. The results are discussed in light of the existing literature on two components of environmental change (environmental predictability and the certainty with which cues predict the best behavioral response) and their effect on the development of cognitive abilities.