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Female preference for male lateral projection area in Poecilia reticulata

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Abstract

The lateral projection area (LPA) hypothesis was investigated by presenting female guppies, Poecilia reticulata with a series of paired males in three experiments. One trait was held constant in each experiment (dorsal fin size in expt I, body size in expt II, and total LPA in expt III) while body: dorsal fin ratio varied. Females spent more time near dummies of greater body and dorsal fin size in experiments I and II. The preference functions based on the first two sets of stimuli showed a similar pattern: the greater the LPA difference between paired dummies, the stronger the preference for the larger of the two. However, in the third experiment, neither fin size, body size, nor any particular dorsal fin + body size combination was preferred. These findings support the LPA hypothesis suggesting that increased LPA is more stimulating to sexually receptive females, and that females consequently prefer larger males. Preference for increased male dorsal fin size/LPA in both P. latipinna and P. mexicana as demonstrated in previous studies, and the more distantly related P. reticulata (shown here) is consistent with common ancestry of the sensory/neural systems in females of all three species and perhaps the entire Poeciliid family.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported in part by a Merrimack College Faculty Development Grant. C. MacLaren, J. Gagnon and three anonymous reviewers provided helpful comments on the manuscript. We thank S. Iacozzi, M. Ash, P. Ash, E. ElAchi, and P. Imbriano for providing assistance in data collection. We also thank D. Tombarelli for her assistance in lab maintenance and Swamp River Aquatics for supplying the fish used in this study. The research methods presented herein were described in Research Protocol 1RDM1008 and approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of Merrimack College.

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  1. Department of Biology, Merrimack College, 315 Turnpike St., North Andover, MA, 01845, USA

    Ronald David MacLaren & Adam Fontaine

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  1. Ronald David MacLaren
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  2. Adam Fontaine
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Correspondence to Ronald David MacLaren.

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MacLaren, R.D., Fontaine, A. Female preference for male lateral projection area in Poecilia reticulata . Environ Biol Fish 93, 105–119 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-011-9896-x

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