Male mate choice in livebearing fishes: an overview

Abstract

Although the majority of studies on mate choice focus on female mate choice, there is growing recognition of the role of male mate choice too. Male mate choice is tightly linked to 2 other phenomena: female competition for males and ornamentation in females. In the current article, I review the existing literature on this in a group of fishes, Poeciliidae. In this group, male mate choice appears to be based on differences in female quality, especially female size, which is a proxy for fecundity. Some males also have to choose between heterospecific and conspecific females in the unusual mating system of the Amazon molly. In this case, they typically show a preference for conspecific females. Whereas male mate choice is relatively well documented for this family, female ornamentation and female competition are not.

Keywords: Gambusia; Poecilia; Xiphophorus; binary choice test; fecundity; female choice; female size; guppy; preference function; sexual selection.

Figure 1.

Hypothesized relationship between male mate choice, female competition, and female ornamentation.