The influence of experience on mating preferences of the gynogenetic Amazon molly

The role of experience in shaping individual female mating preferences has been relatively neglected. The goal of this study was to examine how female mating preferences are shaped through male–female interactions in the clonally reproducing female gynogenetic fish, Poecilia formosa. In visual choice tests, some P. formosa preferred P. latipinna males and others preferred males of another poeciliid species, Xiphophorus multilineatus. After interacting with the same males, but without a transparent barrier between them, females originally preferring X. multilineatus switched their preference to P. latipinna males. Females can therefore change their preferences based on experience. The degree of male sexual behaviour may contribute to this change in preferences, but the direct cause is unknown. As a control, we examined how experience influenced preferences of P. latipinna and P. formosa females that had originally preferred P. latipinna males. Female preferences of the sexual species P. latipinna were statistically indistinguishable from preferences of P. formosa with an initial preference for P. latipinna males. The preferences of these two female groups were not influenced by interactions with their preferred male (P. latipinna). The post-encounter preferences of P. formosa females that originally preferred X. multilineatus also became statistically indistinguishable from these two groups of females. Female preference changes based on experience may also be generalized to males with similar traits. Poecilia formosa initially preferring X. multilineatus did not revert back to their original preference when exposed to a new pair of males, but demonstrated a significant decrease in the amount of time spent with X. multilineatus males compared with P. latipinna males. ? 1997 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour Variation in female mating preferences may be shaped through both heritable influences as well as interactions with the environment (reviews by Hepper 1991; Ritchie 1992). One area receiving considerable attention is the role of social influences, particularly that of mate-copying behaviour (Gibson & Hoglund 1992; Hoglund et al. 1995). A number of studies support the importance of mate-copying behaviour; that is, females of several species copy the mating preferences of other conspecific females. Other interactions are also likely to influence female mating preferences, including individual encounters with males. Correspondence: C. A. Marler, Department of Psychology, 1202 West Johnson St, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, U.S.A. C. Foran and M. J. Ryan are in the Department of Zoology, University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712, U.S.A. 0003–3472/97/051035+07 $25.00/0/ar960356 ? 1 103 Mating preferences can be influenced by experience during development to avoid inbreeding (reviewed in Bateson 1983; Hepper 1991; Brown & Eklund 1994). Males can also form mating preferences for receptive versus non-receptive females based on experience (e.g. Taylor & Dewsbury 1988), and the social environment may impact male sexual behaviour in populations of Trinidadian guppies (Rodd & Sokolowski 1995). Thus experience may influence mating preferences in several ways. In this study, we examined whether an adult female’s visual preferences for a male would be influenced by directly interacting with him. We initially examined this question in a species with female preferences for mates with very different traits, the gynogenetic Amazon molly, Poecilia formosa. This all-female species has an unusual mating system; although each offspring is a 997 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour