Meeting Abstract

55.1  Thursday, Jan. 6  The association between sex ratio, melanism and numerical abundance in mosquitofish HORTH, Lisa; Old Dominion University lhorth@odu.edu

Male mosquitofish have two pigmented genotypes. The common morph is olivaceous gray and the rare morph is melanic (black spotted). Point mutations in genes associated with melanism, and with protein expression differences have been identified in the melanic morph of the eastern mosquitofish. Melanism is also temperature-sensitive in some populations. Life-history and behavioral traits have previously been shown to differ between these pigmentation genotypes. Here, melanism is shown to be associated with sex-ratio bias, changes in the numerical abundance of females, and population size.