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53 results for “female mate preference”
Data From: Females alter their mate preferences depending on hybridization risk
<p><span>Mating with another species is often maladaptive because it generally results in no or low-fitness offspring. When hybridization is sufficiently costly, individuals should avoid mating with heterospecifics even if it reduces their ability to mate with high-quality conspecifics that resemble heterospecifics. Here, we used spadefoot toads, <em>Spea multiplicata</em>, to evaluate whether females alter their preferences for conspecific male sexual signals (call rate) depending on heterospecific presence. When presented with conspecific signals against a background including both conspecific and heterospecific signals, females preferred male traits that were most dissimilar to heterospecifics—even though these signals are potentially associated with lower-quality mates. However, when these same females were presented with a background that included only conspecific signals, some females switched their preferences, choosing conspecific signals that were exaggerated and indicative of high-quality conspecific mates. Because only some females switched their preferences between these two chorus treatments, there was no population-level preference for exaggerated male signals in the absence of heterospecifics. Thus, hybridization risk can impact mate choice and thereby alter patterns of sexual selection. These results also emphasize that reproductive barriers between species (such as mate choice) can be context-dependent, with important implications for the origins and maintenance of species boundaries.</span></p>
Data From: Females alter their mate preferences depending on hybridization risk
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Colorful traits in avian females, individual condition, reproductive performance, and male mate preferences: A meta-analytic approach
<p>Colorful ornaments in females are suggested to have evolved and be maintained by sexual selection. Although several studies have evaluated this idea evidence is still equivocal. Results from empirical studies have been compilated in reviews, but quantitative analyses have seldom been performed. Here, using a meta-analytic approach, we show that evidence from empirical studies conducted in birds, supports the ideas that colorful female ornaments are positively associated with individual condition, reproductive performance, and male-mate preferences. Hence, females' colorful traits, in birds, likely evolved and are maintained by sexual selection.</p>
Data from: Divergent male and female mate preferences do not explain incipient speciation between lizard lineages
<p>Diversification in sexual signals is often taken as evidence for the importance of sexual selection in speciation. However, in order for sexual selection to generate reproductive isolation between populations, both signals and mate preferences must diverge together. Furthermore, assortative mating may result from multiple behavioural mechanisms, including female mate preferences, male mate preferences and male-male competition; yet their relative contributions are rarely evaluated. Here, we explored the role of mate preferences and male competitive ability as potential barriers to gene flow between two divergent lineages of the tawny dragon lizard, Ctenophorus decresii, which differ in male throat coloration. We found stronger behavioural barriers to pairings between southern lineage males and northern lineage females than between northern males and southern females, indicating incomplete and asymmetric behavioural isolating barriers. These results were driven by both male and female mate preferences rather than lineage differences in male competitive ability. Intrasexual selection is therefore unlikely to drive the outcome of secondary contact in C. decresii, despite its widely acknowledged importance in lizards. Our results are consistent with the emerging view that although both male and female mate preferences can diverge alongside sexual signals, speciation is rarely driven by divergent sexual selection alone.</p> <p> </p>
Female mate preferences do not predict male sexual signals across populations
<p>New species can arise when female preferences and male sexual signals diverge across populations and thereby reduce mating between populations. Under this hypothesized mechanism for speciation, mate preferences and male signals should be correlated, but divergent, across populations. We evaluated this prediction using spadefoot toads (Spea multiplicata). We measured a sexually-selected male signal (call rate) for which female preferences are known to vary across populations in response to hybridization risk. Contrary to expectation, we found no correlation between male call rate and female preferences across populations. We discuss possible mechanisms of this pattern, including the effect of gene flow from heterospecifics on male call rate. Our results suggest that, even when populations vary in mating traits, the independent evolution of female preferences and male sexual signals might impede reproductive isolation between populations. </p>
Data from: Sympatry and parapatry among rocky reef cichlids of Lake Victoria explained by female mating preferences
<p><span>Work on the Lake Victoria cichlids <em>Pundamilia nyererei</em> (red dorsum males, deeper water), <em>Pundamilia pundamilia</em> (blue males, shallower water) and related species pairs has provided insights into processes of speciation. Here, we investigate female mating behaviour of five <em>Pundamilia </em>species and four of their F1-hybrids through mate choice trials and paternity testing. We discuss the results in the context of the geography of speciation and coexistence. Complete assortative mating was observed among all sympatric species. Parapatric species with similar depth habitat distributions interbred whereas other parapatric and allopatric species showed complete assortative mating. F1-hybrids mated exclusively with species accepted by females of the parental species. Although consistent with reinforcement in sympatry, a closer look at our results suggests otherwise and it is more likely that pre-existing female preferences influence which taxa can co-exist in sympatry. Regardless of the mechanism, mating preferences may influence species distribution in potentially hybridizing taxa, such as in the adaptive radiations of cichlid fish. We suggest that this at least partly explains why some species fail to establish breeding populations in locations where they are occasionally recorded. Our result support the notion that mating preferences of potentially cross-breeding species ought to be included in coexistence theory.</span></p>
Data from: The neurodevelopmental genes alan shepard and Neuroglian contribute to female mate preference in African Drosophila melanogaster
<p>Mate choice is a key trait that determines fitness for most sexually reproducing organisms, with females often being the choosy sex. Female preference often results in strong selection on male traits that can drive rapid divergence of traits and preferences between lineages, leading to reproductive isolation. Despite this fundamental property of female mate choice, very few loci have been identified that contribute to mate choice and reproductive isolation. We used a combination of population genetics, quantitative complementation tests, and behavioral assays to demonstrate that alan shepard and Neuroglian contribute to female mate choice, and could contribute to partial reproductive isolation between populations of Drosophila melanogaster. Our study is among the first to identify genes that contribute to female mate preference in this historically important system, where female preference is an active premating barrier to reproduction. The identification of loci that are primarily known for their roles in neurodevelopment provides intriguing questions of how female mate preference evolves in populations via changes in sensory system and higher learning brain centers.</p>
Colorful traits in female birds relate to individual condition, reproductive performance, and male mate preferences: A meta-analytic approach dataset
<p>Colorful traits in females are suggested to have evolved and be maintained by sexual selection. Although several studies have evaluated this idea, support is still equivocal. <span><span>Evidence has been compiled in reviews, and a handful of quantitative synthesis have explored evidence of the link between condition and specific color traits in males and females. However, understanding the potential function of females' colorful traits in sexual communication has not been the primary focus of any of those previous studies</span></span><span>. </span>Here, using a meta-analytic approach, we find that evidence from empirical studies in birds supports the idea that colorful female ornaments are positively associated with residual mass and immune response, clutch size, and male-mate preferences. Hence, colorful traits in female birds likely evolved and are maintained by sexual selection.</p>
Data from: Variation in the strength of female mate preference for male size supports the signal reliability hypothesis
<p>Both sexually selected traits and mate preferences for these traits can be condition dependent, yet how variation in preferred traits could select for condition dependent preferences has rarely been examined. The signal reliability hypothesis predicts that mate preferences vary across environments in relation to the reliability of the information preferred traits provide in those environments. Extensive variation in copy number of the <em>mc4r</em> gene on Y chromosome is correlated with adult male size in <em>Xiphophorus multilineatus</em>, when males stop growing. This genetic variation allowed us to use a split-sibling design to show that male size is more variable, and thus likely to provide reliable information about male genotype, when males were reared in a warm as compared to cold environment. Females reared in the warm environment had stronger mate preferences for male size. Understanding how the reliability of male traits can select for conditional variation in the strength of the female mate preferences will further our discovery of adaptive mate preferences. For example, the relationship between the strength of a female's mate preference and their growth rates supports previous work hypothesizing disassortative mating in relation to growth rates to mitigate a documented growth-mortality tradeoff in this species.</p>
Data from: Female mate preferences on high dimensional shape variation for male species recognition traits
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Data from: Female preference for novel males constrains contemporary evolution of assortative mating in guppies
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Data from: Divergent male and female mate preferences do not explain incipient speciation between lizard lineages
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Data from: Temperature coupling of mate attraction signals and female mate preferences in four populations of Enchenopa treehoppers (Hemiptera: Membracidae)
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Colorful traits in female birds relate to individual condition, reproductive performance, and male mate preferences: A meta-analytic approach dataset
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Data from: The neurodevelopmental genes alan shepard and Neuroglian contribute to female mate preference in African Drosophila melanogaster
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Experimental data supporting the interactive effects of mating receptivity and courtship pheromones on the scent preferences of female red-legged salamanders
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Data from: Sympatry and parapatry among rocky reef cichlids of Lake Victoria explained by female mating preferences
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Female mate preferences do not predict male sexual signals across populations
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Data from: Strength of female mate preferences in temperature manipulation study supports the signal reliability hypothesis
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Colorful traits in avian females, individual condition, reproductive performance, and male mate preferences: A meta-analytic approach
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Allen Brain Atlas
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International Brain Laboratory public data
The International Brain Laboratory public data releases expose standardized mouse decision-making experiments, including Neuropixels recordings, widefield calcium imaging, behavior, and session metadata accessed through the ONE API.
OpenNeuro
OpenNeuro is a free, open platform for sharing neuroimaging datasets, with public search, dataset pages, and download paths for web, S3, DataLad, and the OpenNeuro CLI.