The Trinidadian guppy represents a uniguely tractable vertebrate system, which has raised key questions in evolutionary ecology and supplied many of the answers. This work discusses this study and incorporates significant new findings and insights.

The Trinidadian guppy (Poecilia reticulata) is well known to biologists and home aquarium enthusiasts alike. Scientists have studied guppies for most of the twentieth century. Some of the most intensive recent research has been conducted by behavioral ecologists, who have found that the guppy mating system makes guppies especially useful in the study of sexual selection and mate choice. By observing guppy behavior in aquaria, researchers hope to obtain new insights into how selection operates in natural populations. Here Anne Houde summarizes and synthesizes the scientific work done to date, relates the empirical findings on guppies to current themes in sexual selection theory, and suggests new directions for future research. This book describes the sexual behavior of guppies and examines how mate choice by females leads to the evolution of the conspicuous colors and the courtship displays for which guppies are widely recognized. The author shows that female guppies prefer males with bright color patterns, especially those with orange spots, and that the mating preferences of females lead to sexual selection on both color patterns and courtship displays of males. Houde's work addresses a number of areas that are of interest in sexual selection, including the remarkable degree of plasticity and evolutionary lability of sexual behavior in guppies, geographic variation in mating preferences, possible mechanisms for the evolution of female mating preferences, and the role of sexual selection in speciation. In conclusion, the author explores the implications of her findings for behavioral ecologists who study sexual selection in other species.

Genetic studies aimed at understanding the origin of species are dominating major scientific journals. In the past decade, genetic tools that were previously available only in model systems have become accessible to investigators working on nearly all species. Concurrent with these technical advances has been an increase in understanding of both the importance of considering the ecological context of speciation and testing hypotheses about causes for species formation. Many recent studies suggest a prominent role of sexual selection in species formation. These advances have produced a need for a synthesis of what we now understand about speciation, and perhaps more importantly, where we should go from here. In this volume, several leading investigators and rising stars have contributed reviews and/or novel primary research findings aimed at understanding the ultimate mystery on which Darwin named his most famous and influential book. Fundamental to the origin of species is the evolution of mate choice systems. This collection of papers discusses burgeoning genetic, evolutionary, and ecological approaches to understanding the origins of mating discrimination and causes of premating reproductive isolation both within and between species. The individual contributions span a wide spectrum of disciplines, taxa, and ideas (some controversial). This synthesis brings together several of the most recent ideas with supporting empirical data. This book will be of particular interest to both undergraduate and postgraduate researchers and students and researchers in the field of evolutionary biology, genetics and animal behaviour.

This book describes the sexual behavior of guppies and examines how mate choice by females leads to the evolution of the conspicuous colors and the courtship displays for which guppies are widely recognized. The author shows that female guppies prefer males with bright color patterns, especially those with orange spots, and that the mating preferences of females lead to sexual selection on both color patterns and courtship displays of males.

In August of 1980, near the whistlestop of Maltby, Surely, we would plead, the U. S. A. , a wealthy Washington, Don Stewart and I met in my rented nation,can fund our proposal if only as a gesture of house trailer to sketch a proposal to the National support to foreign scientists. Somehow, however, Science Foundation. Our goal was simple: to re we seemed to miss deadlines, fall in-between the quest from the Foundation air fare and per diem for cracks, and miss the right connections. It was not approximately 20 Latin American scientists to at until May, 1982, several weeks before the proposed tend a workshop entitled the 'Systematics and workshop, that we realized we could not find any Evolutionary Ecology of Neotropical Freshwater funds for bringing Latin American scientists to the Fishes' that would follow the 1982 ASIH (Ameri U. S. The programs for the meeting had been can Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists) printed, the meal coupons, banquet tickets, and all meeting. We had presented an initial outline for our the other amenities that come with a professional proposal to a number ofcolleagues in . June of 1980 meeting were ready, but we had no Latin American at the ASIH meeting at Texas Christian University ichthyologists as participants. Some abstracts were in Fort Worth, Texas. The steering committee for being received by the program organizers, but the workshop, consisting of a dozen senior scien without U. S.

This book celebrates the guppy's unique contribution to evolutionary ecology. Ever since Caryl Haskins described guppy populations as a 'natural experiment' because of the way predation pressure varies over a small geographical area, generations of researchers have been drawn to Trinidad to investigate evolution in the wild. The species continues to provide classic examples of natural selection in action and elegantly illustrates how ecology, evolution, and behaviour are interlinked. Anne Magurran's account of the evolutionary ecology of the guppy integrates historical breakthroughs with new research in this fast-moving field. She reveals how guppies provided some of the first evidence of sperm competition and sexual selection, and how they continue to inform scientific thought on mating systems and cryptic choice. The consequences of variation in predation risk—as well as a host of other biotic and abiotic factors—are described and evaluated at all life stages from conception to death. The book discusses behavioural responses to ecological conditions alongside life history patterns. It examines the potential for ecological speciation and discusses new research into how reproductive isolating mechanisms become established in promiscuous mating systems. Conservation issues are also considered, both in terms of protecting the irreplaceable Trinidadian guppy system and in the context of invasion ecology. This timely synthesis of research into a species that has raised key questions in evolutionary ecology will be of great interest to graduate level students as well as professional researchers in the fields of behavioural ecology and evolutionary biology.

Advances in the Study of Behavior continues to serve scientists across a wide spectrum of disciplines. Focusing on new theories and research developments with respect to behavioral ecology, evolutionary biology, and comparative psychology, these volumes serve to foster cooperation and communication in these diverse fields.