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228 results for “Guppy”

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dryad32/100

A test of the role of associative learning in originating sexual preferences in the guppy

How do female sexual preferences for male ornamental traits arise? The developmental origins of female preferences are still an understudied area, with most explanations pointing to genetic mechanisms. One intriguing, little-explored, alternative focuses on the role of associative learning in driving this process. According to this hypothesis, a preference learned in an ecological context can be transferred into a sexual context, resulting in changes in mating preferences as a by-product. I tested this hypothesis by first training female guppies to associate either orange or black colour with food delivery; I then presented videos of males with computer-manipulated coloured spots and measured female preference towards them. I also allowed females from both treatments to mate with males differing in their ratio of orange-to-black spots and measured the males' reproductive success. After training, female sexual preferences significantly diverged among treatments in the expected direction. In addition, orange males sired a greater proportion of offspring with females food-conditioned on orange compared to those conditioned on black. These results show that mating preferences can arise as a by-product of associative learning, which, via translation into variation in male fitness, can become associated with indirect genetic benefits, potentially leading to further evolution.

opencc-zeroMar 2022View details →

dryad32/100

Data from: Shoaling in the Trinidadian guppy: Costs, benefits, and plasticity in response to an ambush predator

Shoaling, the formation of social groupings in fish, can provide benefits including reduced predation risk. However, it can also inflict costs including increased competition for resources, transmission of parasites, and salience to predators. Trinidadian guppies exhibit inter-population variation in shoaling behavior where individuals coexisting with large piscivorous predators (high predation localities) spend most of their time in shoals and those coexisting with an ambush predator, Rivulus hartii (recently, Anablepsoides hartii), that preys primarily on smaller guppies (low predation localities) do not. It has been suggested that this predator selects for reduced shoaling because doing so reduces salience to the predator. Here, as far as we know, we perform the first test of this idea. First, we investigated the effectiveness of shoaling in encounters with this predator. In survival trials, where one rivulus interacted with a group of guppies, we found that the predator was more likely to attack individuals in shoals than singletons. However, we also found that attacks directed at shoals were less likely to succeed. This suggests that the optimal strategy for guppies co-existing with this predator is to reduce shoaling to reduce the probability of being attacked, and to form shoals when an attack is initiated. We then asked if guppies modified their shoaling behavior in response to visual and olfactory cues from this predator during development. We found changes in guppy behavior in response to the treatment: guppies increased shoaling behavior when there was heightened risk of predation.

opencc-zeroMar 2022View details →

dryad32/100

Microbiomes of guppy populations translocated in Trinidadian streams

An organisms' gut microbiome can alter its fitness, yet we do not know how gut microbiomes change as their hosts evolve in the wild. We took advantage of a five-decade 'chronosequence' of translocated fish populations to examine associated changes in the gut microbiome. Populations of Trinidadian guppies have displayed parallel phenotypic convergence six times when moved from high predation (HP) to low predation (LP) environments. Across four drainages, we found microbiomes of fish translocated 5-6 years prior to sampling were already distinct from the microbiomes of their HP source populations. Changes in environmental conditions were most important in driving this shift, followed by phenotypic shifts in gut morphology. After 30-60 years in LP environments, microbiome composition was still distinct from native LP populations, but microbiome function was not. We found some evidence that nitrogen fixation enhanced gut nutrient absorption, but most functional shifts were not parallel across drainages. Stream-and drainage-specific signatures were present for both composition and function, despite our overall finding of consistent microbiome change across drainages. As we unravel the complexities of host-microbiome evolution in the wild, studies should consider environmental microbial colonization, host phenotypic plasticity in nature, and more realistic environmental conditions excluded from laboratory studies.

opencc-zeroApr 2022View details →

dryad32/100

Predation risk shapes the use of conflicting personal risk and social safety information in guppies

When faced with uncertainty, animals can benefit from using multiple sources of information in order to make an optimal decision. However, information sources (e.g., social and personal cues) may conflict, while also varying in acquisition cost and reliability. Here, we assessed behavioral decisions of Trinidadian guppies (Poecilia reticulata), in situ, when presented with conflicting social and personal information about predation risk. We positioned foraging arenas within high- and low-predation streams, where guppies were exposed to a personal cue in the form of conspecific alarm cues (a known indicator of risk), a novel cue, or a control. At the same time, a conspecific shoal (a social safety cue) was either present or absent. When social safety was absent, guppies in both populations showed typical avoidance responses towards alarm cues, and high-predation guppies showed their typical avoidance of novel cues (i.e., neophobia). However, the presence of social safety cues was persuasive, overriding the neophobia of high-predation guppies and emboldening low-predation guppies to ignore alarm cues. Our experiment is one of the first to empirically assess the use of safety and risk cues in prey, and suggests a threshold level of ambient risk which dictates the use of conflicting social and personal information.

opencc-zeroJul 2021View details →

dryad32/100