Meeting Abstract
Male Lucania killifish court females using a series of repetitive, rapid, head-flicking behaviors where males position themselves beneath females and flick their heads. This behavior is strongly correlated with male mating success and genetic analyses indicate that it is highly heritable. There is some suggestion that the behavior varies between two closely related species (bluefin and rainwater killifish). Yet there is little understanding of (a) how males are stimulating the sensory systems of females and (b) the underlying mechanisms of this behavioral phenotype. Lucania killifish possess cranial pores that are a part of the lateral line system, which may be important in detecting this signal. Furthermore, work done in the 1960s suggested that males were generating sounds, but subsequent studies failed to verify this. Here, we present a study that we performed using high speed video to record this repetitive, rapid, head-flicking behavior. Under high speed video capture, the rapid head-flick motion is observed to have a central pivot point within the thoracic region. Rapid motion is detected in both the head and the trunk of body as lateral, periodic movement around this pivot point. Analysis of high speed footage allows for discussion of the rate of head-flicks, amplitude of whole body muscle twitch, frequency of oscillation, and number of oscillations per event. These data help us better understand how males are stimulating females and whether there are important components of this phenotype that differ between two closely related species.
