The Use of Video Presentation in Female Guppy Male Choice Experiments

Abstract

In lab settings, guppies are widely utilized in many types of experiments, such as mate choice. This is due to the relative ease of replication and observation. Video playback is an up and coming method for scientific experiments because it can lower the expenses of the experiment as well as decrease harm and stress to the organisms tested. To test the efficiency of video stimulus, live male guppies were replaced by video stimuli presented on tablets PCs. Based of observation from live mate choice experiment, we hypothesized that the guppies would respond to the video stimuli by showing stronger mate preference during simultaneous rather than sequential presentation. During simultaneous video presentation, the individual guppies were observed spending greater amounts of time near one of the two videos in each test. This indicates that the female guppies were exhibiting mate choice behaviors. The data shows that there was of the guppies responding to the video, yet our data shows that the choice was not significant.