The Effect of UV Light Emissions on Courtship Behaviors in Poecilia reticulata

Abstract

Sexual selection and mate choice are vital processes to the continued survival of all species, and Poecilia reticulata has been an important species in advancing our understanding of these processes. The way a guppy will choose a mate is based off of many factors such as size, color, and other traits of the same nature. Due to the newly available glow in the dark 3d printing material, and the lack of data utilizing these models, we have decided to use glow in the dark models for our experiment. We hypothesize that the models displaying mimicked bioluminescence will result in more courtship behaviors displayed towards it, and tested this by displaying a control model and either a charged or non-charged experimental model to a naïve guppy with one at either end of the tank. The results of our trials showed that more courtship behaviors were displayed towards the non-charged experimental models, contradicting our hypothesis. This could be due to errors in the preparation of the charged experimental models and future studies could be performed to possibly correct these shortcomings.