Bower Size and Male Reproductive Success in a Cichlid Fish Lek

Bower Size and Male Reproductive Success in a Cichlid Fish Lek

A role for male bower size as an intrasexual signal in a Lake Malawi cichlid fish

Disruptive sexual selection through female mate choice has been proposed as a key mechanism driving the evolution of haplochromine cichlid fish diversity. Here we investigated if male secondary sexual traits employed by females in direct mate choice have an additional function in male competition. We conducted a field experiment on aggression among males of a lekking Lake Malawi cichlid species...

Quantifying mating success of territorial males and sneakers in a bower-building cichlid fish

The strategies and traits males evolve to mate with females are incredible in their diversity. Theory on the evolution of secondary sexual characters suggests that evolving any costly trait or strategy will pay off and stabilise in the population if it is advantageous compared to the alternative less costly strategy, but quantifying the relative success of the two can be difficult. In Lake Mala...

A test of male infanticide as a reproductive tactic in a cichlid fish

Infanticide and offspring cannibalism are taxonomically widespread phenomena. In some group-living species, a new dominant individual taking over a group can benefit from infanticide if doing so induces potential mates to become reproductively available sooner. Despite widespread observations of infanticide (i.e. egg cannibalism) among fishes, no study has investigated whether egg cannibalism o...

reproductive success of the zebra cichlid cichlasoma nigrofasciatum in relation to parental care and body size

the zebra cichlid cichlasoma nigrofasciatum is a species famous for its behaviors of biparental care. this study was conducted to examine the effect of parental care and their size on the reproductive success of this fish. hatching rate (hrs) has significant difference (p