Company Does Not Matter When Male Guppies are Exposed to Female Guppies

Abstract

            Sexual selection and mating behavior is a popular study among biologists and ethologists. Guppies are used scientific research to study these interactions. We decided to do our experiment over whether or not male guppies (Poecilia reticulata) had a preference to mate with female guppies in larger populations or smaller populations.  In our experiment we put one male guppy in a tank and divided it into three different parts where a population of one guppy and a population of two guppies were separated on each side of the tank as we observed the behaviors and time spent with each group.  We found that the male guppy did not prefer one group to another so there are other factors that are more important to the guppy rather than mating in groups.