Sex differences in color discrimination and serial reversal learning in mollies and guppies

Abstract

Behavioural flexibility provides an individual with the ability to adapt its behaviour in response to environmental changes. Studies on mammals, birds and teleosts indicate greater behavioural flexibility in females. Conversely, males appear to exhibit greater behavioural persistence. We, therefore, investigated sex differences in behavioral flexibility in two closely related molly species (Poecilia latipinna, P. mexicana) and their more distant relative, the guppy P. reticulata by comparing male and female individuals in a serial, visual reversal learning task. Fish were first trained in colour discrimination, which was quickly learned by all females (guppies and mollies) and all molly males alike. Despite continued training over more than 72 sessions, male guppies did not learn the general test procedure and were, therefore, excluded from further testing. Once the reward contingency was reversed serially, molly males of both species performed considerably better by inhibiting their previous response and reached the learning criterion significantly faster than their respective conspecific females. Moreover, Atlantic molly males clearly outperformed all other individuals (males and females) and some of them even reached the level of one-trial-learning. Thus, the apparently universal pattern of higher female behavioural flexibility seems to be inverted in the two examined molly species, although the evolutionary account of this pattern remains highly speculative. These findings were complemented by the observed lower neophobia of female sailfin mollies compared to their male conspecifics. This sex difference was not observed in Atlantic mollies that were observed to be significantly less distressed in a novel situation than their consexuals. Hypothetically, sex differences in behavioural flexibility can possibly be explained in terms of the different roles that males and females play in mating competition, mate choice and reproduction or, more generally, in complex social interactions. Each of these characteristics clearly differed between the closely related mollies and the more distantly related guppies.