School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
PLoS One. 2010 Dec 9;5(12):e15279. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0015279.
Sexual displays and mate choice often take place under the same set of environmental conditions and, as a consequence, may be exposed to the same set of environmental constraints. Surprisingly, however, very few studies consider the effects of environmental costs on sexual displays and mate choice simultaneously. We conducted an experiment, manipulating water flow in large flume tanks, to examine how an energetically costly environment might affect the sexual display and mate choice behavior of male and female guppies, Poecilia reticulata. We found that male guppies performed fewer sexual displays and became less choosy, with respect to female size, in the presence of a water current compared to those tested in still water. In contrast to males, female responsive to male displays did not differ between the water current treatments and females exhibited no mate preferences with respect to male size or coloration in either treatment. The results of our study underscore the importance of considering the simultaneous effects of environmental costs on the sexual behaviors of both sexes.
性展示和配偶选择通常在相同的环境条件下进行，因此可能会受到相同的环境限制。然而，令人惊讶的是，很少有研究同时考虑环境成本对性展示和配偶选择行为的影响。我们进行了一项实验，通过操纵大型水槽中的水流，研究了能量成本高的环境如何影响雄性和雌性孔雀鱼（Poecilia reticulata）的性展示和配偶选择行为。我们发现，与在静水中测试的雄性相比，在有水流的情况下，雄性孔雀鱼的性展示行为减少，对雌性大小的选择性降低。与雄性相反，对雄性展示做出反应的雌性在水流处理之间没有差异，并且在两种处理中，雌性对雄性大小或颜色都没有表现出交配偏好。我们研究的结果强调了同时考虑环境成本对两性性行为影响的重要性。
