ABS 2023
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The Evolution of sexual imprinting in poison frogs
Yusan Yang. University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, United States

Differences in mate preferences are hypothesized to facilitate speciation by reducing interbreeding among divergent lineages. However, mate choice is not always genetically inherited as traditional models assumed, and they rarely operate without intrasexual competition. My lab studies how female preference and male-male competition interact, and how learned mating behaviors shape sexual selection dynamics and speciation patterns. Many Neotropical poison frog (Dendrobatidae) species exhibit extreme intraspecific variation in coloration, but different color types still interbreed. Color functions in both female choice and male-male competition. In at least one species,�color bias in mating behaviors is shaped by sexual imprinting on the mother. Dendrobatidae species possess a wide diversity of parental care modes, involving egg care, tadpole transport, and trophic egg feeding. Species differ in the degree of care as well as in which sex performs such care. This provides us a unique opportunity to test the hypothesis that parental care mode determines whether and when the offspring are exposed to parental phenotype(s), thus influencing the opportunity for imprinting to evolve.