Meeting Abstract
Sexual dimorphism, phenotypic differences between males and females, plays an important role in mate selection. In rare cases such as in convict cichlid fish the sexual dimorphism is reversed; females, not males, display ornate carotenoid-based coloration. The adaptive function of female coloration, however, is poorly understood. One hypothesis is that color is a quality indicator in females and that males discriminate among females with varying amount of color. We examined whether male mate choice is influenced by variations in female coloration and whether females’ behavior determines pairbonding success. We hypothesized that males would choose more colorful females, that the latency to pairbond would be significantly lower if female orange patch sizes differ greatly, and that female-female and female-male behavioral dynamics would be important determinants of pairbonding success. We used four different treatments to test these hypotheses, where males were allowed to interact for 10 days with a pair of females: mismatched for orange patch size; matched for small orange patch size; matched for large orange patch sizes; or mismatched for orange patch size under a green-filtered light that limits perception of orange color. Our results reject the hypothesis that males choose mates on the basis of color. Our results also reject the hypothesis that pairbonding latency would change as a function of the color asymmetry between females. However, females that were highly aggressive towards other females, and that did not submit to the male had the highest probability of successfully pairbonding. While the adaptive function of female color remains somewhat of a mystery, it seems that behavioral elements outside of courtship are important predictors of pairbonding success.
