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Integrative and Comparative Biology Advance Access originally published online on May 10, 2006
Integrative and Comparative Biology 2006 46(4):439-448; doi:10.1093/icb/icj045
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

Sexual selection and reproductive success in hermaphroditic seabasses

Christopher W. Petersen1
College of the Atlantic 105 Eden Street Bar Harbor, ME 04609, USA

Correspondence: 1E-mail: chrisp{at}coa.edu

Mating behavior in simultaneously hermaphroditic seabasses has been often cited as an example of cooperation among unrelated conspecifics. The predominant mating behavior in this group involves egg trading, where individuals reciprocally fertilize parcels of eggs from a partner. Egg trading has been suggested as a good example of a tit-for-tat cooperative mating strategy. Although simultaneous hermaphroditic fishes are often held up as strong examples of cooperation in mating behavior, a closer examination reveals significant sexual selection and sexual conflict between male and female roles among individuals. In the 7 species where data exist, there is a significant increase in male reproductive success with individual size, and in all but 1 species success through male function increases faster than reproductive success through female function. Despite this male-size advantage in simultaneous hermaphrodites, most species maintain their hermaphroditism for their entire life, and the increased male allocation while engaging in biased forms of reciprocation appear to increase the evolutionary stability of hermaphroditism in these species. Thus, egg-trading behavior is probably more complicated than was initially recognized, with individuals releasing different numbers of eggs in spawns, spawning at different rates as males and females, and partitioning male effort between pair and alternative mating tactics. The departures from equal reciprocity can probably be best understood by including aspects of traditional mating-system theory, with individuals increasing male mating success through a variety of behavioral tactics.


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J. L. Leonard
Sexual selection: lessons from hermaphrodite mating systems
Integr. Comp. Biol., August 1, 2006; 46(4): 349 - 367.
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