Linked Life Data

18547351

Source:http://linkedlifedata.com/resource/pubmed/id/18547351

Statements in which the resource exists as a subject.
PredicateObject
rdf:type
lifeskim:mentions
pubmed:issue
5
pubmed:dateCreated
2008-9-19
pubmed:abstractText
Sexual selection arising through female mate choice typically favours males with larger, brighter and louder signals. A critical challenge in sexual selection research is to determine the degree to which this pattern results from direct mate choice, where females select individual males based on variation in signalling traits, or indirect mate choice, where male competition governs access to reproductively active females. We investigated female mate choice in a lekking Lake Malawi cichlid fish, Hemitilapia oxyrhynchus, in which males build and aggressively defend sand 'bowers'. Similar to previous studies, we found that male reproductive success was positively associated with bower height and centrality on the lek. However, this pattern resulted from males holding these territories encountering more females, and thus their greater success was due to indirect mate choice. Following initial male courtship, an increase in the relative mating success of some males was observed, but this relative increase was unrelated to bower size or position. Crucially, experimentally manipulating bowers to resemble those of a co-occurring species had no appreciable effect on direct choice by females or male spawning success. Together, these results suggest indirect mate choice is the dominant force determining male-mating success in this species, and that bowers are not signals used in direct mate choice by females. We propose that, in this species, bowers have a primary function in intraspecific male competition, with the most competitive males maintaining larger and more central bowers that are favoured by sexual selection due to higher female encounter rates.
pubmed:language
eng
pubmed:journal
pubmed:citationSubset
IM
pubmed:status
MEDLINE
pubmed:month
Sep
pubmed:issn
1420-9101
pubmed:author
pubmed:issnType
Electronic
pubmed:volume
21
pubmed:owner
NLM
pubmed:authorsComplete
Y
pubmed:pagination
1387-96
pubmed:meshHeading
pubmed:year
2008
pubmed:articleTitle
Indirect mate choice, direct mate choice and species recognition in a bower-building cichlid fish lek.
pubmed:affiliation
School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK. m.genner@bristol.ac.uk
pubmed:publicationType
Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't