Abstract
Male parental care is typically thought to come at a cost to mate attraction and future mating success. However, it has also been hypothesized that paternal care may be under sexual, as well as natural, selection, such that good fathers actually attract more mates. Here we show experimentally that in the sand goby, Pomatoschistus minutus, females prefer to mate with males that provide higher levels of parental care. We manipulated male behavior using (1) different nest sizes and (2) an application of low-O2 water in the nests, and found that females consistently preferred males with elevated levels of care in dichotomous mate choice tests. This complements our earlier study in which we showed that males increase the amount and quality of care they provide in the presence of females. Our results demonstrate that male care may have evolved as a result of sexual selection rather than natural selection alone, and furthermore, that male care may not necessarily be in conflict with mate attraction.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Andersson M (1994) Sexual selection. Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton
Baylis JR (1981) The evolution of parental care in fishes, with reference to Darwin's rule of male sexual selection. Environ Biol Fishes 6:223–251
Burley N (1986) Sexual selection for aesthetic traits in species with biparental care. Am Nat 127:415–445
Clutton-Brock TH (1991) The evolution of parental care. Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton
Forsgren E (1997) Female sand gobies prefer good fathers over dominant males. Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 264:1283–1286
Freeman-Gallant CR (1997) Parentage and paternal care: consequences of intersexual selection in Savannah sparrows? Behav Ecol Sociobiol 40:395–400
Gross MR (2005) The evolution of parental care. Q Rev Biol 80:37–45
Gustafsson L, Qvarnström A, Sheldon BC (1995) Trade-offs between life-history traits and a secondary sexual character in male collared flycatchers. Nature 375:311–313
Hoelzer GA (1989) The good parent process of sexual selection. Anim Behav 38:1067–1107
Iwasa Y, Pomiankowski A (1999) Good parent and good genes models of handicap evolution. J Theor Biol 200:97–109
Jamieson IG (1995) Do female fish prefer to spawn in nests with eggs for reasons of mate choice copying or egg survival? Am Nat 145:824–832
Jones JC, Reynolds JD (1999) Costs of egg ventilation for male common gobies breeding in conditions of low dissolved oxygen. Anim Behav 57:181–188
Kirkpatrick M (1985) Evolution of female choice and male parental investment in polygynous species: the demise of the “sexy son”. Am Nat 125:788–810
Knapp RA, Kovach JT (1991) Courtship as an honest indicator of male parental quality in the bicolor damselfish, Stegastes partitus. Behav Ecol 2:230–295
Kunzler R, Bakker TCM (2000) Pectoral fins and paternal quality in sticklebacks. Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 267:999–1004
Lissåker M, Kvarnemo C, Svensson O (2003) Effects of a low oxygen environment on parental effort and filial cannibalism in the male sand goby, Pomatoschistus minutus. Behav Ecol 14:374–381
Magrath MJL, Komdeur J (2003) Is male care compromised by additional mating opportunity? Trends Ecol Evol 18:424–430
Östlund S, Ahnesjö I (1998) Female fifteen-spined sticklebacks prefer better fathers. Anim Behav 56:1177–1183
Pampoulie C, Lindström K, St. Mary CM (2004) Have your cake and eat it too: male sand gobies show more parental care in the presence of female partners. Behav Ecol 15:199–204
Qvarnström A, Griffith SC, Gustafsson L (2000) Male–male competition and parental care in collared flycatchers (Ficedula albicollis): an experiment controlling for differences in territory quality. Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 267:2547–2552
Sargent RC, Gross MR (1993) William's principle: an explanation of parental care in teleost fishes. In: Pitcher TJ (ed) Behaviour of teleost fishes. Chapman & Hall, London, pp 333–361
Sheldon BC (2000) Differential allocation: tests, mechanisms and implications. Trends Ecol Evol 15:397–402
Tallamy DW (2000) Sexual selection and the evolution of exclusive paternal care in arthropods. Anim Behav 60:559–567
Tallamy DW (2001) Evolution of exclusive paternal care in arthopods. Ann Rev Entomol 46:139–165
Trivers RL (1972) Parental investment and sexual selection. In: Campbell B (ed) Sexual selection and the descent of man 1871–1971. Aldine, Chicago, pp 136–179
Westneat DF, Sargent RC (1996) Sex and parenting: the effects of sexual conflict and parentage on parental strategies. Trends Ecol Evol 11:87–91
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Communicated by J. Krause
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lindström, K., St. Mary, C.M. & Pampoulie, C. Sexual selection for male parental care in the sand goby, Pomatoschistus minutus . Behav Ecol Sociobiol 60, 46–51 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-005-0138-0
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-005-0138-0