@article{UusiHeikkilaBoeckenhoffWolteretal.2012,
  author    = {Uusi-Heikkila, Silva and Boeckenhoff, Linda and Wolter, Christian and Arlinghaus, Robert},
  title     = {Differential Allocation by Female Zebrafish (Danio rerio) to Different-Sized Males - An Example in a Fish Species Lacking Parental Care},
  series = {PLOS ONE},
  volume    = {7},
  journal   = {PLOS ONE},
  number    = {10},
  publisher = {PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE},
  address   = {SAN FRANCISCO},
  issn      = {1932-6203},
  doi       = {10.1371/journal.pone.0048317},
  pages     = {7},
  year      = {2012},
  abstract  = {Organisms allocate resources to reproduction in response to the costs and benefits of current and future reproductive opportunities. According to the differential allocation hypothesis, females allocate more resources to high-quality males. We tested whether a fish species lacking parental care (zebrafish, Danio rerio) expresses male size-dependent differential allocation in monogamous spawning trials. In addition, we tested whether reproductive allocation by females is affected by previous experience of different-quality males, potentially indicating plasticity in mate choice. To that end, females were conditioned to large, small or random-sized males (controls) for 14 days to manipulate females\’ expectations of the future mate quality. Females showed a clear preference for large males in terms of spawning probability and clutch size independent of the conditioning treatment. However, when females experienced variation in male size (random-sized conditioning treatment) they discriminated less against small males compared to females conditioned to large and small males. This might suggest that differential allocation and size-dependent sexual selection is of less relevance in nature than revealed in the present laboratory study.},
  language  = {en}
}