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The artistic three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteous aculeatus)

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Abstract

We investigated whether female three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) are more attracted to a male whose nest contains colourful artificial material than to a nest that only contains algae. The purpose was to examine whether nest characters are of importance for female choice in the three-spined stickleback. Most studies on female preference in this species have focused on male morphological traits. In our study, on a marine population of three-spined stickleback on the West coast of Sweden, we found that males marked their nests' entrance with a deviant colour of algae — an apparent decoration. Moreover, males also decorated their nests with shiny and colourful foil sticks and spangles when provided with such, thereby apparently reducing the nest camouflage. In a mate choice experiment, females were more attracted to males with nests containing sticks and spangles than to males with undecorated nests. Nest decoration may be important for the evolution of paternal care in this species: if males advertise their paternal skills by ornamenting their nest they will receive more matings than males with dull nests.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Anders Berglund, Göran Nilsson, Staffan Ulfstrand, Lenore Litherland Jens Krause and an anonymous referee for valuable comments on the manuscript. We would like to thank Justin Marshall and Kylie Jennings for help with the spectrophotometer. Financial support was provided by Uppsala University (Inez Johansson Foundation and the Foundation for Zoological Research), the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (Hierta-Retzius Foundation) and the Helge Ax:son Johnson Foundation. We thank Klubban Biological Station for putting their facilities at our disposal. This study followed the ethical guidelines for animal experiments at Uppsala University.

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  1. Department of Biology, University of Oslo, P.O.Box 1051, 0316 , Oslo, Norway

    Sara Östlund-Nilsson & Mikael Holmlund

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  1. Sara Östlund-Nilsson
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  2. Mikael Holmlund
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Correspondence to Sara Östlund-Nilsson.

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Communicated by J. Krause

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Östlund-Nilsson, S., Holmlund, M. The artistic three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteous aculeatus). Behav Ecol Sociobiol 53, 214–220 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-002-0574-z

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