How Body Size of a Female Poecilia reticulata Affects Male Sexual Selection

Abstract

Studying sexual selection between guppies is beneficial because knowing what size guppy the male is more attracted to is significant to producing more offspring.Our lab group performed an experiment to test which size female guppy the male will choose from a selection of small, medium, and large guppies. Our hypothesis is that the male guppy will choose a large female guppy because of its higher chance of survival through environmental changes. Since studies have shown a relationship between larger females and higher offspring production, larger females should have a higher chance of successfully reproducing with a larger amount of offspring. In our experiment we measured which size female guppy the male is most attracted to. To test our hypothesis our lab group used the Biol1114 guppy data collector, to run the simulations (French 2021). To compare p values, our group conducted the Mann-Whitney U Test. The results of our experiment do not support our hypothesis. Overall, the male model guppy 101001 spent more time on the side of the tank the small model guppy 101003 was on.