sex

Sex: when bigger is better!

Simon actually did some serious thinking the other day after my blog on the rarity of sexually selected characters in marine systems. He came up with a couple more examples of sexual selection, one of which was the difference between the sexes in mandarin fish. Mandarin fish males are much larger than females and have very elongated fin rays. Males behave differently from females, arriving at the mating grounds well before females do, securing and defending small territories in the broken Acropora rubble mandarin fish mate above.

Male mandarin fish arriving

Male mandarin fish arriving


Males compete fiercely over the ownership to especially attractive sites. Conflicts are most often resolved by a side by side measuring of each others strengths, where obviously weaker fish fold before fighting, as fighting would not do them any good anyway. However, at times the male pair will be more or less evenly matched and a vicious fight can be initiated, where males push, flick and bite each other.
Fighting mandarin fish males

Fighting mandarin fish males


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By Bent, ago

Sexual selection – a driving force in marine systems?

Prey are well adapted to evade predators, and predators are correspondingly well adapted to catch prey. For most of us it is pretty reasonable to accept that such adaptation happens by natural selection, leading to long-term evolution of animals, making them better to either catch prey or evade predators, whatever end of the food chain you happen to be on. Thus natural selection affects traits such as foraging efficiency or anti-predator behaviours that lead to longer lives, quicker growth rates and, both directly and indirectly, higher reproduction rates. Most of my earlier blogs have more or less built on the assumption of natural selection affecting adaptations of animals.

Bright warning colour on nudibranch. Probably a result of natural selection favouring nudis clearly advertising their poisonous properties.

Bright warning colours on nudibranch. Probably a result of natural selection favouring nudis clearly advertising their poisonous properties.


There is  another kind of selection, sexual selection, that is a little bit harder to understand. Sexual selection is the process where traits that directly affect the likelihood of securing a mate is changed over time, leading to the evolution of traits that sometimes seem to act contrary to natural selection in that sexually selected traits rather decrease life expectancy and growth rates. There are many examples of traits governed by sexual selection on land. Bird song, brightly colored males in many birds and lizards, antlers on deer and males adapted for fighting other males for access to females are examples that we all can relate to. It is thought that sexual selection in terrestrial systems are well as important as natural selection in shaping many aspects of populations and also a major force in driving speciation. (more…)

By Bent, ago