Data from: Early social experience shapes female mate choice in guppies

Mating decisions are often plastic and individuals adjust their decisions depending on the social and ecological environment. Although the implications of the social environment on mate choice has been well studied in species with parental care, surprisingly little research has examined the role played by the social environment experienced during ontogeny in species lacking parental care. We used guppies to test the hypothesis that females alter their mate choice in response to variation in the distribution of male sexual traits encountered during development. To manipulate their juvenile experience, we exposed maturing females to groups of males differing in the values of male coloration, known to be sexual traits in guppies. These exposures were carried out either during the entire developmental period or the latter half of the developmental period. Both choosiness and preference functions for a number of male color traits were affected by rearing treatments. Furthermore, females exhibited disassortative preferences for the phenotypes experienced as juveniles, suggesting a rare-male advantage. Finally, depending on male stimuli, only long-exposed females formed preferences for specific male colors. Our study demonstrates the importance of socially mediated preferences and highlights how preferences for rare phenotypes and fluctuating selection due to heterogeneity in signaling conditions may contribute to the maintenance of the polymorphism found in male color patterns.

择偶决策通常具有可塑性，个体可依据社会与生态环境调整其决策。尽管在具有亲代抚育行为的物种中，社会环境对择偶选择的影响已得到充分研究，但令人惊讶的是，针对缺乏亲代抚育的物种，其个体发育（ontogeny）阶段所经历的社会环境所发挥的作用却鲜有研究。本研究以孔雀鱼（guppies）为实验对象，验证如下假说：雌性个体可依据发育阶段所接触到的雄性性征分布差异，调整其择偶决策。为操控幼龄阶段的发育经历，我们将处于成熟阶段的雌性个体暴露于不同体色梯度的雄性种群中；而体色正是孔雀鱼的已知性征。该暴露处理分为两种模式：全程覆盖整个发育周期，或仅覆盖发育周期的后半阶段。饲养处理对雌性的择偶选择性（choosiness）以及多种雄性颜色性状的偏好函数（preference functions）均产生了显著影响。此外，雌性个体对幼龄阶段接触到的表型表现出歧化择偶偏好（disassortative preferences），这提示存在稀有雄性优势（rare-male advantage）。最后，仅接受长期暴露处理的雌性个体，会依据雄性刺激信号形成针对特定雄性体色的择偶偏好。本研究证实了社会介导的择偶偏好（socially mediated preferences）的重要性，并揭示了对稀有表型的偏好、以及信号传递环境异质性所引发的波动选择（fluctuating selection），如何共同维持雄性体色模式的多态性（polymorphism）。