Mating success in brood-guarding male rock bass,Ambloplites rupestris: the effect of body size

Abstract

The hypothesis that variation in a paternal trait associated with offspring survival will result in female mate choice based on that trait was tested in rock bass,Ambloplites rupestris, a temperate fresh water fish with uniparental male care. The number of eggs acquired by 108 nesting male rock bass, in Cranberry Lake (New York State, U.S.A.), was estimated in two different spawning episodes that differed in the size structure of the nesting male stock. Early breeders (between the 4–7 June 1989) were mainly medium and large males (101–300 g), as compared to late breeders (between the 19–21 June 1989) which were mostly small (50–100 g). Because survival of larvae in rock bass is significantly lower in nests guarded by small males as compared to nests guarded by medium and large males, it was hypothesized that female mate choice should have been (1) size-based, and (2) more intense late in the season when the nesting stock was comprised mostly of small males. The results were consistent with these hypotheses. Variation in egg numbers per nest was significantly higher during the late spawning episode. In addition, egg number per nest were normally distributed during the early spawning episode, but were positively skewed and leptokurtic during the later episode. The correlation between male size and egg number was significant for both spawning episodes. However, during the late episode male size explained 23% of the variation in egg numbers versus only 8% of the variation during the earlier episode.