The Microphis deocata, a pipefish species, is an example of sexual dimorphism, as mentioned in the instructions. I did not know exactly what this term meant, so I looked it up. According to Oxford Languages, sexual dimorphism is the, "distinct difference in size or appearance between the sexes of an animal in addition to difference between the sexual organs themselves" (Oxford Languages). In the video that we were shown, the female had a round protrusion coming off of her, while the male did not. Usually, males have the more interesting or "pretty" features, as they are trying to attract a female in order to mate with them. According to Darwin, sexual selection is responsible for traits specific to a gender. Sexual traits can be divided into two categories: traits that help create a weapon to fight off other competition, or a trait that helps to improve the attractiveness of an animal, (these traits don't have any purpose besides ornamentation), (Scientific American). In the case of the Microphis deocata, I think that the trait in the female is just used for ornamentation and not as a weapon to fight other females off.
I made a hypothesis before looking at anything about the species of pipeline fish. Below is my hypothesis.
The female Microphis deocata would have the more colorful features with the reason that maybe there aren't many males in the population, so if the females want to mate, they have to stand out. This would make sense on why the males don't need to stand out. If there is a small number of them, then they would not need to compete like they normally might need to.
After making my hypothesis, I looked a little more into the Microphis decoata. In turns out that the male fertilizes the egg in the female, and then the female puts the fertilized egg into the males pouch, (like a seahorse!), (WalterCrews). So, the males are in short supply in this case because they are putting in the extra work of intubating the baby pipefish. So, since the roles of "pregnancy" are reversed, it would make sense that the sex that had the stand out traits would switch too!
Sources:
Oxford Languages: https://www.oxfordlanguages.com
Scientific American: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-are-male-birds-more-c/
WalterCrews: https://praquatics.com/forums/threads/rainbow-belly-pipefish-microphis-deocata.4136/
Emmary,
ReplyDeleteFirst off I like how you took the time to look up the definition so you had a really clear understanding of what you were going to talk about in your blog before doing so. Your hypothesis about there not being many males in the population is very insightful and a very good idea