Male red coloration, female mate preference, and sperm longevity in the cyprinid fish Puntius titteya

Abstract

In recent decades, the link between the exaggeration of male sexual ornaments and ejaculate quality has received much attention. When males with conspicuous sexual ornaments have high-quality ejaculate, females are believed to obtain benefits, such as high fertilization success and offspring with good genes, by choosing mates on the basis of male ornamentation. In this study, we examined the relationships among male body coloration, female mate preference, and sperm longevity in the sexually dichromatic fish Puntius titteya. Males of this species assume a bright red coloration over the entire body, and neither sex invests in the parental care of eggs. In the female preference test, females preferred males with redder body coloration over their counterpart males with duller coloration. In addition, the sperm longevity test indicated that redder males had sperm with greater longevity. These results suggest that the red coloration of males in this species may signal sperm longevity and that females can mate with males with higher quality sperm by choosing redder males.