ArticleJournal of evolutionary biology2015
Positive genetic correlation between brain size and sexual traits in male guppies artificially selected for brain size.
Article in Journal of evolutionary biology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed.
- Specialization of male reproductive tactics corresponds with large gonads and small brains.Evolution; international journal of organic evolution · 2026Article
- Spatiotemporal Patterns of Gene Expression Associated With Mating Stimuli in the Brain of Female Guppies.Genes, brain, and behavior · 2025Article
- Divergence in brain size and brain region volumes across wild guppy populations.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
- No gains for bigger brains: Functional and neuroanatomical consequences of relative brain size in a parasitic wasp.Journal of evolutionary biology · 2019Article
- Female brain size affects the assessment of male attractiveness during mate choice.Science advances · 2017Article
- Artificial selection on male genitalia length alters female brain size.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2016Article
- Sexual selection impacts brain anatomy in frogs and toads.Ecology and evolution · 2016Article
- Selection for brain size impairs innate, but not adaptive immune responses.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2016Article
- The effect of brain size evolution on feeding propensity, digestive efficiency, and juvenile growth.Evolution; international journal of organic evolution · 2015Article
- Brain size affects female but not male survival under predation threat.Ecology letters · 2015Article
- Short-term heat waves have long-term consequences for parents and offspring in stickleback.Behavioral ecology : official journal of the International Society for Behavioral EcologyArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Brain size is an energetically costly trait to develop and maintain. Investments into other costly aspects of an organism's biology may therefore place important constraints on brain size evolution. Sexual traits are often costly and could therefore be traded off against neural investment. However, brain size may itself be under sexual selection through mate choice on cognitive ability. Here, we use guppy (Poecilia reticulata) lines selected for large and small brain size relative to body size to investigate the relationship between brain size, a large suite of male primary and secondary sexual traits, and body condition index. We found no evidence for trade-offs between brain size and sexual traits. Instead, larger-brained males had higher expression of several primary and precopulatory sexual traits--they had longer genitalia, were more colourful and developed longer tails than smaller-brained males. Larger-brained males were also in better body condition when housed in single-sex groups. There was no difference in post-copulatory sexual traits between males from the large- and small-brained lines. Our data do not support the hypothesis that investment into sexual traits is an important limiting factor to brain size evolution, but instead suggest that brain size and several sexual traits are positively genetically correlated.
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