A group of scientists including University of Toronto researchers have discovered that female guppies consistently prefer males with distinct and rare colour patterns. The research team included Anna C. Price and professor Helen Rodd of U of T’s Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department.
Male guppies in the wild are extremely colourful. There is a great variety of colours and patterns on the tails of these fish. By picking a male with an unusual colour pattern, female guppies may be attempting to ensure that they do not mate with a close genetic relative.
Male guppies pass on their patterns to their offspring, decreasing the rarity of their markings. Eventually rare patterns become common, and females’ interest in these patterns decrease.
The fashions found attractive by female guppies change over time in a way that is analogous to changing fashion trends among humans. In an interview with U of T News, Rodd explained: “Eventually lots of people will be dressing [one] same way and it won’t be novel anymore and it will fall out of fashion, until a decade later when another group of fashion-conscious individuals reinvent 70s fashion again.”
The findings are published in the paper “Mating advantage for rare males in wild guppy population” in the October 31 issue of Nature.
With files from Nature and U of T News
