Thaindian News

Sydney, Oct 12 (IANS) Male fish can be extremely choosy about females, depending on how attractive or good looking they are, before committing themselves.

In their choice of mates, males also seem to be influenced by the social experiences they have had in the recent past.

“This study reveals the sophisticated process that determines mating decisions and shows a very strong effect of the social environment in the evolution of reproductive behaviour generally,” said researcher Alex Jordan.

Jordan from the University of New South Wales Evolution and Ecology Research Centre co-authored the study with its director, Rob Brooks, a professor, the journal Evolution reports.

“When males have recently encountered only few females - what you might call in the dating game a ‘dry spell’ - they expend significantly more effort in courting new females when they do meet up,” said Jordan, according to a New South Wales statement.

Conversely, “males that have been in a ‘purple patch’, encountering numerous females in their recent past, are far more relaxed in the presence of subsequent females, and court these new females about half as strongly as desperado males,” he added.

The lab study investigated the courtship strategies of male guppies as they relate to their individual social history.

Males housed with females that varied in size and hence attractiveness, subsequently developed a strong preference for the largest and hence most attractive females and ignored smaller females.

Yet males who had only experienced females of average attractiveness were not willing to pass up a courtship opportunity and courted any subsequent female equally much.

“Our findings suggest that males make sophisticated assessments of their social environment to determine their best reproductive strategy,” Jordan said.