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25 July 2008 Synchronous Female Spawning and Male Mating Behavior in a Land-Locked Population of Japanese Charr, Salvelinus leucomaenis japonicus
Takuya Sato, Yasushi Harada
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Abstract

In resource-based promiscuous mating systems, synchronous spawning of females affects competition among males and variation in the reproductive success of males. We documented the mating behavior of Japanese charr (Salvelinus leucomaenis japonicus) through an annual breeding season to examine the relationship between female spawning synchrony and male mating behavior. Females spawned highly synchronously in the population studied, i.e., approximately half the spawning was finished within the first three days of the entire spawning season (11 days). The daily operational sex ratio (OSR) was nearly 1:1 through the spawning period. The number of males around a spawning female was very small (1.21±0.49 males per female) over the spawning ground and period, suggesting that a competitive male could effectively chase subordinate males away from a spawning female. A few males attempted to sneak near the oviposition site of females (16%; 9 of 57 breeding groups), while some males adopted sneaking tactics in the initial phase of females’ spawning (24%). We did not observe any males to succeed in sneak fertilizations. We conclude that in this Japanese charr population, the synchronous spawning of females was related to the unbiased daily OSR, male aggregation around females, and consequently whether and how efficiently males engaged in sneak mating behavior.

Takuya Sato and Yasushi Harada "Synchronous Female Spawning and Male Mating Behavior in a Land-Locked Population of Japanese Charr, Salvelinus leucomaenis japonicus," Zoological Science 25(7), 766-772, (25 July 2008). https://doi.org/10.2108/zsj.25.766
Received: 5 December 2007; Accepted: 1 April 2008; Published: 25 July 2008
KEYWORDS
effective population size
male group size
OSR
sneak mating behavior
spawning synchrony
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