Male_Uppies_Prefrence_in_Social_Interactions

Males Preference in Social Interaction Abstract: Introduction: Poecilia retcilia are social fish that are better known as guppies. Most interaction in the animal world has to do with the insurance of the next generation and sexual selection. Were males put on displays for females or males become aggressive with each other to fight over the best mates available. The question was if males are not looking to mate, which sex they wish to spend more time with. The guppies used were collected from the “mixed” tank to insure that the interest shown to the control would not be for reproduction. Being that males seek the attention of females it seemed fit to test them for their social preference. Methods: Altogether, this experiment needed at least 25 fish, 22 tested male fish, one female and one male control. In the readied tank provided a mark was created seven centimeters from one end to allow the fish that was being used for the control to stay in sight of the tested fish. A plastic divider was then placed along this mark to allow separation and keep the control fish in the same relative area. From that divider another mark was made, this one was four centimeters from the original mark. This area is known as the preference zone, the amount of time the tested fish spent in the zone was the data collected. Figure 2 may give a better understanding to the layout of the tank’s space in relevance for this experiment. The tester guppy then had 29 centimeter of free space to swim in. The data collected was time spent in the preference zone, the tested guppy had five minutes of free swim each. Time started after the tested guppy had a visual of the control guppy on the other side of the divider. After the initial 5 minutes with the female guppy and the time was recorded, the female was then switched with the control male. The tester guppy was then tested to see the amount of time he spent in the preference zone for another five minutes. Each trial consisted of one tester male guppy and the two controls, with the time being recorded on a data sheet. Results: There was a little difference between the social preference of a male with another male and a female treatments (paired t-test s= 42.5, StD= 465.98455, p >|s| 0.1730).males when paired with other males had slightly higher preference than when paired with females (figure 1; mean ± s.e. s (grams): low density= 0.097552 ± 0.00492; high density= 0.092403 ± 0.00469). Disscussion: Literature Cited: Aspbury, A.S., Gabor, C.R. 2007-2012. Guppy behavior. In: Laboratory exercises for oranismal biology.Stipes publishing L.L.C. 44-46. Aspbury, A.S., Gabor, C.R. 2007-2012. JMP tutorials. In: Laboratory exercises for oranismal biology.Stipes publishing L.L.C. 47-54. Brask, J.B., Croft, D.P., Thompson, K., Dabelsteen, T., Darden, S.K. 2012. Social preferences based on sexual attractiveness: a female strategy to reduce male sexual attention. Proceedings of the royal society b-biological sciences. 279: 1748-1753. Guevara-Fiore, P., Svensson, P.A., Endler, J.A. 2012. Sex as moderator of early life experience: interaction between rearing environment and sexual experience in male guppies. Animal behavior. 84: 1023-1029. LINDSTROM, K., RANTA, E. 1993. Social Preferences by male guppies, poecilia-reticulata, based on shoal size and sex. Animal behavior. 46: 1029-1031. Edenbrow, M., Darden, S.K., Ramnarine, I.W., Evans, J.P., James, R., Croft, D.P., 2011. Environmental effects on social interaction networks and male reproductive behaviour in guppies, Poecilia reticulate. Animal behavior. 81: 551-558. Figure Legend: Figure 1 Figure 2 Focal Fish Zone: 29 cm Stimulus Zone: 7 cm Preference Zone: 4 cm