TY  - JOUR
A1  - Uusi-Heikkila, Silva
A1  - Boeckenhoff, Linda
A1  - Wolter, Christian
A1  - Arlinghaus, Robert
T1  - Differential Allocation by Female Zebrafish (Danio rerio) to
 Different-Sized Males - An Example in a Fish Species Lacking Parental
 Care
T2  - PLOS ONE
N2  - 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.
Y1  - 2012
UR  - https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/35573
SN  - 1932-6203
VL  - 7
IS  - 10
PB  - PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE
CY  - SAN FRANCISCO
ER  -