RESEARCH
A still unresolved question in evolutionary biology is how genetic variation is maintained in natural populations. During the last 40 years most of the attention on the adaptive value of color has used organisms in which color is a condition-dependent trait. However, we have several understudied examples of populations in which color and other characters are not condition-dependent. Poecilia parae, the Guyanese pentamorphic livebearer, is an excellent study system to address this problem because these tropical freshwater fish are strikingly variable in color patterns. Males of P. parae present one of the five discrete phenotypes present across populations (melanzona red, blue, and yellow, parae in which color is limited to the caudal tail, and immaculata non-colored males resembling juvenile female; see picture below). This color polymorphism is Y-linked. My dissertation focuses on the maintenance of genetic color polymorphism in males in two Guyanese populations of P. parae (West and East). I am using field observations and laboratory experiments. I am investigating how behavioral and ecological factors may contribute to the persistence of such polymorphism in natural populations. Are the relative influence of differential predation and differential mating success influencing the persistence of color polymorphism in P. parae?
RESEARCH KEYWORDS: Genetic color polymorphism, Natural selection, Sexual selection, Conservation biology
Pentamorphic Poecilia parae
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PUBLICATIONS
Hurtado-Gonzales, J. L. & Bodmer, R. E. 2006. Reproductive Biology of female Amazonian brocket deer in northeastern Peru. European Journal of Wildlife Research, 52: 171–177.
Lee, D. N., Hurtado-Gonzales, J. L., & Tang-Martinez, Z. 2004. Pretty boy Hypothesis: The risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases from attractive males. Integrative and Comparative Biology, 44: 590.
Hurtado-Gonzales, J. L. & Bodmer, R. E. 2004. Assessing the sustainability of brocket deer use in the northeastern Peruvian Amazon. Biological Conservation, 116: 1-7.
Hurtado-Gonzales, J. L. 2000. Sustainability of brocket deer use in the northeastern Peruvian. M. A. Thesis, University of Florida-Gainesville.
Navia, F., Hurtado-Gonzales, J. L., & Baca, B. 1998. Herpetofauna preliminar del Santuario Histórico de Machupicchu. Theorema Collana 12: 1-15.
Hurtado-Gonzales, J. L. 1997. Anuros del bosque nublado del Valle de Q’osñipata. Thesis, Biology. Universidad Nacional San Antonio Abad del Cusco, Peru.
Hurtado-Gonzales, J. L. 1996. Utilización del hábitat vertical por ranas del genero Eleutherodactylus en el Parque Nacional del Manu. Kent’e. 8: 9-13.
Hurtado-Gonzales, J. L. & Blanco, D. H. 1994. Ofidios del bosque nublado del Valle de Q’osñipata, Cusco. Boletín de Lima 35:23-35.
Hurtado-Gonzales, J. L., Guerra, L., Delgado, L., & Zambrano, M. 1993. Efectos de la herbivoria causada por insectos generalistas. Kent’e, 5: 17-19.
RECENT PRESENTATIONS:
Hurtado-Gonzales, J. L. 2007. Inter-morph variation of testis size and sperm morphology in the livebearer fish Poecilia parae: A role for sperm competition. 44th Annual meeting of the Animal Behavior Society, Burlington, VT July 21-26.
Hurtado-Gonzales, J. L. & Uy, J. A. C. 2007. Sperm competition games played by a pentamorphic fish. XXX International Ethological Conference, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, Aug. 15-23. |
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