Mating choices of male guppies based on coloration of females

Abstract

Guppies are popular animals to be studied due to their easy ability to be handled, cared for, and observed. They have a wide range of colors, shapes, and sizes that affect their mating preferences. Male guppies perform certain behaviors in front of female guppies that are of mating interest to them (French, 2014). From this information, we created the hypothesis; if we place a brightly colored female model in the tank, then the male guppy will be more attracted to it than the gray models because the males wants to produce brightly colored offspring that will be sexually successful. We decided to test whether the color of the female guppy would affect the male guppy’s mating choice. We tested five different colors of female models to see how much attention the male gave each presented model. The observation tank was marked into three sections and we measured the amount of time the male guppy spent in the different zones. We noticed during our observations that the male spent more time in the zone and performed more courtship behaviors toward the colorful models, especially with the orange model, rather than the dull control models. While we looked at color preference, future studies could study effects of tail size and predation risk.