Battle of the Sexes: Does social influence alter guppy sexual behaviors?

Abstract

Our investigation was conducted in order to reveal if male guppies could essentially evolve attraction to their same-sex. We performed our experiment by placing live male guppies inside tanks with artificial male and female guppies and observed which sex the male guppy displayed increased attraction to after being separated from females for a short period of time. Our findings of whether or not the guppies preferred courtship to male over female guppies proved to support our hypothesis. This led us to question if animals truly do alter their sexual preferences based on their exposure to their presented mates as well as propose different experimental techniques and methods to answer this controversial question.