Does paternal care influence mate preference? Male and female mating behavior in Threespine Stickleback ecotypes that differ markedly in parental care
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Reproductive isolation can occur due to divergence in sexual selection for particular traits. For example, differences in mate preference associated with body size can play an important role in divergence between groups. The importance of mate preference for population divergence may be influenced by other aspects of a mating system, such as the requirement for parental care. In Nova Scotia, Canada, two ecotypes of marine Threespine Stickleback occur sympatrically: a "common" ecotype wherein males provide parental care, and a "white" ecotype that does not exhibit paternal care. The goal of our study was to examine differences in male mate preference between white and common stickleback males to test the prediction that males who invest more in parental care may be more selective about their mates. Because of the link between size and fecundity in this species, we predict that males that invest in parental care should prefer large females, while males that do not provide care will not exhibit preference for larger female size. We found that common male stickleback preferred larger-bodied females of both ecotypes, while white males showed a preference for larger-bodied common females. Secondarily, we assessed whether females differed in their willingness to mate with males of different sizes and ecotypes. Common female stickleback had a higher response rate toward smaller white males, which may be associated with their relatively high courtship rates. Counter to previous studies on these ecotypes that suggest that mating is completely assortative, interecotype matings occurred in half of the observed spawning events. This observation, coupled with the results that males may prefer females based mainly on size and females respond to males who court more rigorously regardless of their ecotype, may lend insight into recent genetic evidence for hybridization in the wild.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".