Paternity analysis reveals sexual selection on cognitive performance in mosquitofish

In many animal species, cognitive abilities are under strong natural selection because decisions about foraging, habitat choice and predator avoidance affect fecundity and survival. But how has sexual selection, which is usually stronger on males than females, shaped the evolution of cognitive abilities that influence success when competing for mates or fertilizations? We aimed to investigate potential links between individual differences in male cognitive performance to variation in paternity arising solely from sexual selection. We therefore ran four standard cognitive assays to quantify five measures of cognitive performance by male mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki). Males were then assigned to 11 outdoor ponds where they could compete for females. Females mate many times, which leads to intense sperm competition and broods with mixed paternity. We genotyped 2,430 offspring to identify their fathers. Males with greater inhibitory control and better spatial learning abilities sired significantly more offspring, while males with better initial impulse control sired significantly fewer offspring. Associative and reversal learning did not predict a male’s share of paternity. In sum, there was sexual selection on several, but not all, aspects of male cognitive performance. DOI https://doi.org/10.32942/X2Q920 Subjects Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences

sexual selection, cognition, fish, Behaviour, Inhibitory control, learning Dates Published: 2025-03-21 15:57 License CC BY Attribution 4.0 International Additional Metadata Conflict of interest statement: None Data and Code Availability Statement: The data that support the findings of this study are available via figshare at https://figshare.com/s/4cc0aeaa01188668c0e7 Language: English