School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
PLoS One. 2011;6(6):e20576. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0020576. Epub 2011 Jun 8.
Males often play a critical role in offspring care but the time and energy invested in looking after young can potentially limit their ability to seek out additional mating opportunities. Recent studies, however, suggest that a conflict between male parental effort and mating effort may not always be inevitable, especially if breeding occurs near the nest, or if parental behaviours are under sexual selection. Accordingly, we set out to experimentally investigate male care and courtship in the desert goby Chlamydogobius eremius, a nest-guarding fish with exclusive paternal care. Despite courtship occurring near the nest, we found that when egg-tending males were given the opportunity to attract additional females, they fanned their eggs less often, engaged in shorter fanning bouts, and spent more of their time outside their nests courting. Our findings highlight the importance of understanding the circumstances under which reproductive tradeoffs are expected to occur and how these, in turn, operate to influence male reproductive decisions.
雄性通常在后代照顾中发挥关键作用，但投入照顾幼崽的时间和精力可能会限制其寻找额外交配机会的能力。然而，最近的研究表明，雄性亲代努力和交配努力之间的冲突并非总是不可避免的，特别是如果繁殖发生在巢附近，或者如果亲代行为受到性选择的影响。因此，我们着手实验研究沙漠虾虎鱼 Chlamydogobius eremius 的雄性照顾和求偶行为，这是一种具有专属父性照顾的巢居鱼类。尽管求偶行为发生在巢附近，但我们发现，当照顾卵的雄性有机会吸引更多的雌性时，它们扇动卵的频率降低，扇动的时间更短，并且更多的时间在巢外求偶。我们的研究结果强调了理解预期发生繁殖权衡的情况以及这些情况如何反过来影响雄性繁殖决策的重要性。
