Searching for a Gillfriend: How the size of female Poecila reticulata influences mate selection.

Abstract

In this study, data was collected from previous studies regarding the sexual preferences of Poecila reticulata. There are multiple ways sexual attraction can be observed in male guppies which are very important because they can be extremely rare. Because of this, this study primarily focused on the amount of time the male guppy spends around the female models. The 3-D printed models that data was collected from were 101001, 101002, and 101003. The statistical significance was measured using a Mann-Whitney U test.  It was hypothesized that male guppies will be more attracted to larger female guppies due to their higher fitness levels and greater ability to reproduce. Data was drawn from past experiments on size preference by male guppies using the Center of Study of Sexual Selection in Fishes. This hypothesis was not supported by the results, as they displayed that the male guppies spent more time with smaller guppies rather than larger ones. As well as, the data’s P-value displayed that the results were insignificant. This implies that the cause of the results is not correlated to the analyzing focus in the study and that the results were due to alternate or random reasons rather than sexual preference.