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Bolder guppies do not have more mating partners, yet sire more offspring.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:Intra-individual stable but inter-individually variable behaviours, i.e. personalities, are commonly reported across diverse animal groups, yet the reasons for their maintenance remain controversial. Therefore, studying fitness consequences of personality traits is necessary to discriminate between alternative explanations. RESULTS:Here, I measured boldness, a highly repeatable personality trait, and reproductive success in male guppies, Poecilia reticulata. I found that bolder males had higher reproductive success than their shyer conspecifics and they sired offspring with females who had larger clutches. CONCLUSIONS:This result provides direct evidence for fitness consequences of boldness in the guppy. It suggests that the effect may be driven by bolder males mating with more fecund females.

SUBMITTER: Herdegen-Radwan M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6857137 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Bolder guppies do not have more mating partners, yet sire more offspring.

Herdegen-Radwan Magdalena M

BMC evolutionary biology 20191114 1

<h4>Background</h4>Intra-individual stable but inter-individually variable behaviours, i.e. personalities, are commonly reported across diverse animal groups, yet the reasons for their maintenance remain controversial. Therefore, studying fitness consequences of personality traits is necessary to discriminate between alternative explanations.<h4>Results</h4>Here, I measured boldness, a highly repeatable personality trait, and reproductive success in male guppies, Poecilia reticulata. I found tha ...[more]

PMID: 31726971

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Project description:AbstractIn birds with extrapair mating, older males usually have higher fertilization success than younger males. Two hypotheses can potentially explain this pattern: 1) females prefer older, and often more ornamented males, or 2) older males invest more in reproduction and fertility than younger males. Here we studied factors associated with age-related male fertilization success in a population of barn swallows Hirundo rustica in Canada. We document that male fertilization success increased gradually up to a minimum age of four-year old. The age effect was especially strong for the number of extrapair offspring obtained and the occurrence of a second brood. The higher fertilization success of older males was also associated with an early start of breeding in spring. The length of the elongated outermost tail feathers, a postulated male ornament preferred by females, also increased with age (in both sexes), but it was not a significant predictor of male fertilization success within age classes. Male fertility traits, especially testis size, but also sperm motility and sperm velocity, increased significantly across age groups. Our results suggest that the higher fertilization success by older males is due to their higher reproductive investments and that their longer tails are an adaptation to early arrival on the breeding grounds.Significance statementThe barn swallow is a socially monogamous passerine with extensive extrapair mating. We found that males become more successful in siring both withinpair and extrapair offspring as they become older. Their increased fertilization success was associated with a higher reproductive effort as indicated by larger testes, more motile sperm, and an earlier start of breeding in spring. The length of the outer tail feathers increased with age in both sexes, but long tails did not enhance male fertilization success among males of the same age. Long tails are probably an adaptation to rapid migration and earlier arrival on the breeding grounds. Our findings suggest that the commonly observed age-related increase in male fertilization success in passerine birds is better explained by life history theory than by sexual selection theory.Supplementary informationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00265-022-03170-0.

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Bolder guppies do not have more mating partners, yet sire more offspring.

Publications

Bolder guppies do not have more mating partners, yet sire more offspring.

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