Does Color Play a Part in Guppy Mating?

Abstract

The topic of this investigation is discovering what aspect of female guppies attracts male guppies. The key problem that we tackled was investigating this question further and confirming which colors make the females seem more attractive. We tackled the question up for investigation by using different colored plastic guppies paired with plain white control guppies and observed the reactions of the male guppies to the colored and control plastic guppies. We hypothesized that the guppies would be more attracted to the brighter colored treatments, more so than the darker colors. We went about doing research for this experiment by using our lab manual, that contained background information, and also outside sources from scholarly articles. Methods for our experiment included running different tests with plastic guppies, colored and not colored, by placing them in tanks with one male guppy and observing which plastic guppy was preferred. Our results showed that the guppies favoring brighter colors were not always true. We discussed possible reasons for why this could be.   The key impact of all of this research is to help scientists better understand why male guppies are attracted to some females over others.

Key Terms: S-Curve, Gonopodial Swing, Fan, Bite, Guppy.