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Dugatkin, L. A., & Godin, J. - G. J. (1993). Female mate copying in the guppy (Poecilia reticulata): age-dependent effects. Behav. Ecol., 4(4), 289–292.
Abstract: Virtually all studies of mate choice to date have assumed that females choose mates independent of one another. Social cues, however, such as the mate choice of conspecifics, may also play an important role in such decisions. Previous work has shown that female guppies of similar age copy each other's choice of mates. Here we examine the effect of relative age on mate choice copying in the guppy, Poecilia reticulata, and examine whether younger individuals are more likely to copy the mate choice of older conspecifics than vice versa. Results indicate that younger females copy the mate choice of older females, but older individuals do not appear to be influenced by the mate choice of younger individuals.
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Godin, J. - G. J., & Dugatkin, L. A. (1995). Variability and repeatability of female mating preference in the guppy. Anim. Behav., 49(6), 1427–1433.
Abstract: Models of inter-sexual selection generally assume heritable variation in mating preferences among females within populations. However, little is known about the nature of such variation. The aim of this study was to characterize quantitatively the phenotypic variation in female preference for a sexually selected male trait, body colour pattern, within a population of the Trinidadian guppy, Poecilia reticulata. Significantly more female guppies preferred the more brightly coloured of two similar-sized males presented simultaneously as potential mates. Mating preference scores for individual females were significantly and positively correlated between two repeated trials on successive days. Females were thus individually consistent in their particular choice of mates, and the calculated repeatability of their mating preference was relatively high. Notwithstanding the aforementioned, significant variation existed among females in the degree of their preference for brightly coloured males. Individual mating preference scores were not normally distributed, but were rather skewed to the right (i.e. towards greater values). These results suggest that additive genetic variation for mating preferences based on male colour pattern is maintained, and the opportunity for the further evolution of both bright male colour patterns and female preference for this trait appears to exist in the study population from the Quare River, Trinidad.
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Godin, J. - G. J., Herdman, E. J. E., & Dugatkin, L. A. (2005). Social influences on female mate choice in the guppy, Poecilia reticulata: generalized and repeatable trait-copying behaviour. Anim. Behav., 69(4), 999–1005.
Abstract: In vertebrates, the mating preferences of individual females can be flexible and the probability of a female mating with a particular male can be significantly increased by her having previously observed another conspecific female affiliate and mate with that same male. In theory, such mate-choice-copying behaviour has potentially important consequences for both the genetic and social (`cultural') transmission of female mating preferences. For copying to result in the `cultural inheritance' of mating preferences, individual females must not only copy the mate choice decisions of other females but they also should tend to repeat this type of behaviour (i.e. make similar mating decisions) subsequently and to generalize their socially induced preference for a particular male to other males that share his distinctive characteristics. Here, we show experimentally that individual female guppies, Poecilia reticulata, not only copy the observed mating preferences of other females for particular males, but that the preference now assumed via copying is subsequently repeated and generalized to other males of a similar colour phenotype. These results provide empirical evidence for social enhancement of female preference for particular phenotypic traits of chosen males rather than for the particular males possessing those traits, and thus have important implications for our understanding of the role of social learning in the evolution of female mating preferences and of male epigamic traits.
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