scholarly journals Male sexual harassment alters female social behaviour towards other females

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 186-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Safi K. Darden ◽  
Lauren Watts
Keyword(s):  
Social Behaviour ◽  
Poecilia Reticulata ◽  
Direct Evidence ◽  
Social Recognition ◽  
Free Swimming ◽  
Male Harassment ◽  
Evolutionary Conflict ◽  
Shoaling Behaviour ◽  
Mating Opportunities ◽  
Taxonomic Groups

Male harassment of females to gain mating opportunities is a consequence of an evolutionary conflict of interest between the sexes over reproduction and is common among sexually reproducing species. Male Trinidadian guppies Poecilia reticulata spend a large proportion of their time harassing females for copulations and their presence in female social groups has been shown to disrupt female–female social networks and the propensity for females to develop social recognition based on familiarity. In this study, we investigate the behavioural mechanisms that may lead to this disruption of female sociality. Using two experiments, we test the hypothesis that male presence will directly affect social behaviours expressed by females towards other females in the population. In experiment one, we tested for an effect of male presence on female shoaling behaviour and found that, in the presence of a free-swimming male guppy, females spent shorter amounts of time with other females than when in the presence of a free-swimming female guppy. In experiment two, we tested for an effect of male presence on the incidence of aggressive behaviour among female guppies. When males were present in a shoal, females exhibited increased levels of overall aggression towards other females compared with female only shoals. Our work provides direct evidence that the presence of sexually harassing males alters female–female social behaviour, an effect that we expect will be recurrent across taxonomic groups.

scholarly journals Implications of multiple mating for offspring relatedness and shoaling behaviour in juvenile guppies

2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (6) ◽  
pp. 623-626 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan P Evans ◽  
Jennifer L Kelley
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Artificial Insemination ◽  
Social Behaviour ◽  
Poecilia Reticulata ◽  
Multiple Mating ◽  
Potential Cost ◽  
Close Proximity ◽  
Shoaling Behaviour

Polyandry (female multiple mating) can confer important benefits to females, but few studies have considered its potential costs. One such cost may arise through differences in the relatedness of offspring born to females with different mating histories; offspring born to monandrous females are always full siblings, while those produced by polyandrous females may be full or half siblings. These differences may have important consequences for social interactions among offspring. We used artificial insemination in the guppy ( Poecilia reticulata ), a promiscuous live-bearing fish, to evaluate shoaling behaviour in polyandrous and monandrous broods. We combined this information with known parentage data for the polyandrous broods to determine whether sibling relatedness influenced offspring shoaling behaviour. While we detected no effect of mating treatment (polyandry/monandry) on shoaling behaviour, we found that pairs of full siblings spent significantly more time shoaling (and in close proximity) than pairs of half siblings. This latter finding confirms the ability of newborn guppies to distinguish brood mates on the basis of kinship, but also suggests an important and hitherto unrealized potential cost of polyandry: a reduction in within-brood relatedness with potentially important implications for offspring social behaviour.

scholarly journals Male harassment drives females to alter habitat use and leads to segregation of the sexes

2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
pp. 449-451 ◽  
Author(s):  
Safi K Darden ◽  
Darren P Croft
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
Habitat Use ◽  
Predation Risk ◽  
Sexual Conflict ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Poecilia Reticulata ◽  
Sexual Segregation ◽  
Male Harassment ◽  
Mating Opportunities ◽  
Female Behaviour

Sexual conflict is ubiquitous across taxa. It often results in male harassment of females for mating opportunities that are costly for females, in some cases reducing reproductive success and increasing mortality. One strategy that females may employ to avoid sexual harassment is to segregate spatially from males. In fact, we do find sexual segregation in habitat use in species that have high levels of sexual conflict; however, the role of sexual harassment in driving such segregation remains poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate experimentally in a population of wild Trinidadian guppies Poecilia reticulata that male sexual harassment drives females into habitats that they otherwise do not prefer to occupy. In support of the social factors hypothesis for sexual segregation, which states that social factors such as harassment drive sexual segregation, this female behaviour leads to segregation of the sexes. In the presence of males, females actively select areas of high predation risk, but low male presence, and thus trade off increased predation risk against reduced sexual harassment.

scholarly journals Different cholinergic cell groups in the basal forebrain regulate social interaction and social recognition memory

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kana Okada ◽  
Kayo Nishizawa ◽  
Tomoko Kobayashi ◽  
Shogo Sakata ◽  
Kouichi Hashimoto ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Recognition Memory ◽  
Basal Forebrain ◽  
Social Behaviour ◽  
Cholinergic Neurons ◽  
Social Recognition ◽  
Social Ability ◽  
Cell Groups ◽  
Cholinergic Cell ◽  
Social Recognition Memory

AbstractSocial behaviour is a complex construct that is reported to include several components of social approach, interaction and recognition memory. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is mainly characterized by progressive dementia and is accompanied by cognitive impairments, including a decline in social ability. The cholinergic system is a potential constituent for the neural mechanisms underlying social behaviour, and impaired social ability in AD may have a cholinergic basis. However, the involvement of cholinergic function in social behaviour has not yet been fully understood. Here, we performed a selective elimination of cholinergic cell groups in the basal forebrain in mice to examine the role of cholinergic function in social interaction and social recognition memory by using the three-chamber test. Elimination of cholinergic neurons in the medial septum (MS) and vertical diagonal band of Broca (vDB) caused impairment in social interaction, whereas ablating cholinergic neurons in the nucleus basalis magnocellularis (NBM) impaired social recognition memory. These impairments were restored by treatment with cholinesterase inhibitors, leading to cholinergic system activation. Our findings indicate distinct roles of MS/vDB and NBM cholinergic neurons in social interaction and social recognition memory, suggesting that cholinergic dysfunction may explain social ability deficits associated with AD symptoms.

scholarly journals Evolution of temporal interaction: A comparative approach to social timing

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Ravignani ◽  
Sonja Kotz
Keyword(s):  
Social Behaviour ◽  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Animal Species ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Evolutionary Perspective ◽  
Sensory Modalities ◽  
Temporal Interaction ◽  
Taxonomic Groups ◽  
Timing Behaviour ◽  
Timing Processes

Increasing empirical research shows a deep connection between timing processes and neural processing of social information. An integrative theoretical framework for prospective studies in humans was recently proposed, linking timing to sociality. A similar framework guiding research in non-human animals is desirable, ideally encompassing as many taxonomic groups and sensory modalities as possible in order to embrace the diversity of social and timing behaviour across species. Here we expand on a previous theoretical account, introducing this debate to animal behaviour. We suggest adopting an evolutionary perspective on social timing in animals: i.e. a comparative approach to probe the link between temporal and social behaviour across a broad range of animal species. This approach should advance our understanding of animal social timing that is, how social behaviour and timing are mutually affected, and possibly of its evolutionary history in our own lineage. We conclude by identifying outstanding questions and testable hypotheses in animal social timing.

scholarly journals Guppies prefer to follow large (robot) leaders irrespective of own size

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Bierbach ◽  
Hauke J. Mönck ◽  
Juliane Lukas ◽  
Marie Habedank ◽  
Pawel Romanczuk ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Body Size ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Poecilia Reticulata ◽  
Direct Evidence ◽  
Behavioral Patterns ◽  
Behavioral Differences ◽  
Leaders And Followers ◽  
Biomimetic Robotic Fish ◽  
Risk Taking Behavior ◽  
Swimming Capacity

AbstractBody size is often assumed to determine how successful an individual can lead others with larger individuals being more likely to lead than smaller ones. However, direct evidence for such a relation is scarce. Furthermore, even if larger individuals are more likely to lead, body size correlates often with specific behavioral patterns (e.g., swimming capacity) and it is thus unclear whether larger individuals are more often followed than smaller ones because they are larger or because they behave in a certain way. To control for behavioral differences among differentially-sized leaders, we used biomimetic robotic fish – Robofish – of different sizes. Robofish is accepted as a conspecific by live guppies (Poecilia reticulata) and provides standardized behaviors irrespective of its size. We specifically asked whether larger leaders are preferentially followed when behavior is controlled for and whether the preferences of followers depend on their own body size or their risk taking behavior (‘boldness’). We found that live guppies followed larger Robofish leaders closer than smaller ones and this pattern was independent of the followers’ own body size as well as risk-taking behavior. This is the first study that shows a ‘bigger is better’ pattern in leadership in shoaling fish that is fully independent of behavioral differences between differentially-sized leaders and followers’ own size and personality.

scholarly journals Female mate preference explains countergradient variation in the sexual coloration of guppies ( Poecilia reticulata )

2011 ◽  
Vol 279 (1734) ◽  
pp. 1684-1690 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerry A. Deere ◽  
Gregory F. Grether ◽  
Aida Sun ◽  
Janet S. Sinsheimer
Keyword(s):  
Geographical Variation ◽  
Poecilia Reticulata ◽  
Direct Evidence ◽  
Carotenoid Content ◽  
Pigment Ratio ◽  
Male Attractiveness ◽  
Countergradient Variation ◽  
Sexual Coloration ◽  
Two Populations ◽  
Orange Spot

We tested the hypothesis that mate choice is responsible for countergradient variation in the sexual coloration of Trinidadian guppies ( Poecilia reticulata ). The nature of the countergradient pattern is that geographical variation in the carotenoid content of the orange spots of males is counterbalanced by genetic variation in drosopterin production, resulting in a relatively uniform pigment ratio. A female hue preference could produce this pattern, because hue is the axis of colour variation most directly affected by the pigment ratio. To test this hypothesis, we crossed two populations differing in drosopterin production and produced an F 2 generation with variable drosopterin levels. When the carotenoid content of the orange spots was held constant, female guppies preferred males with intermediate drosopterin levels. This shows that females do not simply prefer males with greater orange spot pigment content; instead, the ratio of the pigments also affects male attractiveness. To our knowledge, this is the first direct evidence for a hypothesized agent of countergradient sexual selection.

The influence of population mixing on newborn shoaling behaviour in the guppy (Poecilia reticulata)

Behaviour ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 151 (10) ◽  
pp. 1479-1490
Author(s):  
C. Sievers ◽  
I.W. Ramnarine ◽  
A.E. Magurran
Keyword(s):  
Poecilia Reticulata ◽  
Adaptive Behaviour ◽  
Secondary Contact ◽  
Parental Origin ◽  
Mixed Ancestry ◽  
Population Mixing ◽  
Local Adaptations ◽  
Hybrid Offspring ◽  
Subtle Effect ◽  
Shoaling Behaviour

The introduction of non-native populations into new habitats where they can mix with the original inhabitants poses a major thread to the genetic distinctiveness of the native population. Interbreeding between introduced and native individuals can disrupt local adaptations and lead to outbreeding depression in resulting hybrid offspring. In the guppy (Poecilia reticulata), shoaling behaviour plays an important part in avoiding predators and is displayed from birth, but differences in shoaling tendency exist between populations. The populations used for our experiment reflect the ones involved in Haskins’ introduction more than 60 years ago, when Guanapo guppies where introduced into the Turure, thereby bringing genetically very distinct populations into secondary contact. This introduction led to an invasive event and subsequent disappearance of the original Turure genotype. Here we show that the mixing of genepools by interbreeding between populations affects adaptive behaviour such as shoaling and creates more variation in the resulting offspring. Furthermore, parental origin has a subtle effect on offspring shoaling behaviour. We found that the shoaling behaviour of hybrid offspring significantly differed from pure-bred offspring of either parental population, but resembled those found in Turure newborns that are likely to be of mixed ancestry as well.

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

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Magdalena Herdegen-Radwan
Keyword(s):  
Reproductive Success ◽  
Personality Traits ◽  
Personality Trait ◽  
Poecilia Reticulata ◽  
Direct Evidence ◽  
Animal Groups ◽  
Fitness Consequences

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.

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