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doi:10.1111/j.1420-9101.2004.00823.x The influence of territoriality and mating system on the evolution of male care: a phylogenetic study on fish M. AH-KING, C. KVARNEMO & B. S. TULLBERG Department of Zoology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden Keywords: Abstract certainty of paternity; paternal care; sneaking; sperm competition; Teleostei; territory. Evolution of male care is still poorly understood. Using phylogenetically matched-pairs comparisons we tested for effects of territoriality and mating system on male care evolution in fish. All origins of male care were found in pair-spawning species (with or without additional males such as sneakers) and none were found in group-spawning species. However, excluding group spawners, male care originated equally often in pair-spawning species with additional males as in strict pair-spawning species. Evolution of male care was also significantly related to territoriality. Yet, most pair-spawning taxa with male care are also territorial, making their relative influence difficult to separate. Furthermore, territoriality also occurs in group-spawning species. Hence, territoriality is not sufficient for male care to evolve. Rather, we argue that it is the combination of territoriality and pair spawning with sequential polygyny that favours the evolution of male care, and we discuss our results in relation to paternity assurance and sexual selection. Introduction Parental care is common among animal taxa and has originated numerous times. Particularly the evolution of male care has attracted much interest (e.g. Trivers, 1972; Williams, 1975; Dawkins & Carlisle, 1976; Maynard Smith, 1977; Ridley, 1978; Perrone & Zaret, 1979; Werren et al., 1980; Baylis, 1981; Gross & Shine, 1981; Gross & Sargent, 1985; Wright, 1998; Tallamy, 2000) and several factors promoting the evolution of male care have been proposed. Features that should increase the benefit of caring include, for example, a harsh environment, competition for resources, and high predation pressure (Clutton-Brock, 1991). However, caring for young may be costly and these costs involve reduced foraging opportunities (Trivers, 1972; Williams, 1975), increased adult mortality (Magnhagen & Vestergaard, 1991) and, most importantly for males, lost mating opportunities because of an often impaired ability to attract new mates (Trivers, 1972; Williams, 1975; Balshine-Earn & Earn, 1998). Indeed, most models investigating the evolution Correspondence: Malin Ah-King, Department of Zoology, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden. Tel.: +46 (0) 8 16 43 98; fax: +46 (0) 8 16 77 15; e-mail: [email protected] of parental care have assumed that caring for young restricts males from gaining additional matings (e.g. Wade & Shuster, 2002). In this study, we found at least 22 origins of male care in fishes. The question arises why this is so common. First, in many fish species the assumption that giving care limits the ability to attract new mates may simply not be borne out. For example, for males that hold a territory in which several females may spawn in succession, the cost of lost mating opportunities is probably insignificant (Blumer, 1979). Therefore male spawning territoriality is commonly suggested to be a prerequisite for male care evolution (Williams, 1975; Clutton-Brock, 1991). Secondly, it is often assumed that a male’s average paternity, i.e. certainty of paternity of a particular offspring, will be lower than the female’s average maternity (e.g. Kokko & Jennions, 2003). However, in fish with male care in nesting territories and several female clutches, each female’s maternity may often be lower than the total paternity of the caring male (C. Kvarnemo, unpublished). Territoriality has been suggested to be a precursor to male care, as the former has been assumed to ensure very high paternity (Perrone & Zaret, 1979; Baylis, 1981). However, as pointed out already by Keenleyside (1981) this assumption is often inaccurate, as in many fishes that provide care in territories, paternity is often considerably J. EVOL. BIOL. 18 (2005) 371–382 ª 2004 EUROPEAN SOCIETY FOR EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY 371 372 M. AH-KING ET AL. reduced by sneakers intruding into the male-guarded territory. Nevertheless, territoriality is likely to increase paternity assurance compared with nonterritoriality. Moreover, sexual selection can also affect male care evolution. Females have been shown to prefer males that can demonstrate care-taking abilities, either through courtship behaviours (Östlund & Ahnesjö, 1998), nestbuilding ability (Soler et al., 1998; Jones & Reynolds, 1999) or the presence of eggs in their nests (e.g. Ridley & Rechten, 1981; Marconato & Bisazza, 1986; Knapp & Sargent, 1989). Males have also been shown to use parental behaviours as a courtship strategy (e.g. Pampoulie et al., 2004). As caring becomes attractive to females, this adds another benefit of care to the male, by not only increasing offspring survival, but also increasing his mating opportunities. In fact, Tallamy (2000) has proposed that male care could imply a benefit in terms of increased mating success because of female preference, instead of a cost (after male care has evolved). Available data on arthropods support the hypothesis that sexual selection has dominated the evolution of exclusive male care (Tallamy, 2000). Data on fish in which males guard their offspring also support this hypothesis, but natural selection has played a primary role in species that carry, mouth- or pouch-brood their young (M. Ah-King, unpublished). Although the evolution of male care has received considerable interest, to our knowledge no study has yet investigated if the factors proposed to influence the origin of male care do indeed predate it. Here we test hypotheses concerning territoriality and mating system. Fish are an ideal group for testing these hypotheses phylogenetically, because both paternal care and territoriality have evolved a number of times and a wide range of mating systems can be found in this taxon. We test the hypotheses by comparing male care evolution in phylogenetic lineages contrasted with respect to differences in territoriality and mating system, respectively. Material and methods The data We used data on exclusive male care, male spawning territoriality and mating system, in combination with phylogenetic information, focusing in particular on origins of exclusive male care (from no male care). We searched the literature for descriptions of paternal care, spawning territoriality and mating system and assigned them to categories, as described below and as summarized in Appendix 1. Our main sources were Breder & Rosen (1966) and the databases Fishbase, ISI (Institute for Scientific Information) and ASFA (Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts). To infer origins of male care, we collected data on species with exclusive male care and their closest relatives lacking male care, as judged by the phylogeny of the group. We then tried to find data on territoriality and mating system for these species. However, in many cases the sister group to a clade with male care was not well studied and we had to use more distant relatives for which data were available. We defined parental care as all behaviours that might increase the fitness of the offspring, which includes for example nest building, bearing, guarding and fanning of eggs. However, merely building a nest could be regarded as mating effort rather than parental investment. Therefore we present the results both including and excluding the species in which males only perform care in the form of nest building. We categorized the mating systems into three groups: group spawning, pair spawning, pair spawning with additional males. Group spawners spawn in a school with several females and males. Pair spawners include both monogamous spawnings and sequentially polygynous spawnings (i.e. matings with multiple females one at a time). Additional males are usually sneakers or satellites. However, this group also includes cases in which two males join a female on each side, so called trio spawnings. Species that are reported to be broadcasting have been categorized as group spawners. Data and references are presented in Appendix A1. To test the effect of mating system on male care we first contrasted lineages with group spawning to all varieties of pair spawning. We then compared lineages with pair spawning, by contrasting pure pair spawning to spawning where one male and one female are accompanied by one or several additional males. We recorded a species as territorial if at least some males hold spawning territories, as many species have both territorial and sneaker males. However, we did not include pure feeding territories. We assumed that a male that builds a nest must be territorial during spawning even if we did not find any references on territoriality in these species. However, male parental care as such does not necessarily imply spawning territoriality, as caring does not always involve site defence. A male can, for instance, carry the eggs with him (seahorses and pipefish, Breder & Rosen, 1966) or splash water on the eggs above the surface (Copella arnoldi, O’Neil & Dunham, 1972). Phylogenetic tree reconstruction We constructed a composite tree (Fig. 1) that as far as possible is based on studies that have used modern phylogenetic methods. When several phylogenies were available for a group, we chose the two with the best resolution and which included the largest number of species for which we could obtain behavioural data. Alternative phylogenies (Fig. 2) were used to test whether our results were consistent between phylogenies. As the different alternative subtrees are independent, we used the combination of alternative subtrees that produced the minimum and maximum number of changes respectively in each trait. J. EVOL. BIOL. 18 (2005) 371–382 ª 2004 EUROPEAN SOCIETY FOR EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY Male care evolution in fish 373 Fig. 1 Composite tree. (a) Optimization of male care. Black lines, male care; white lines, no male care; hatched lines, equivocal. (b) Optimization of male spawning territoriality. Black lines, male spawning territoriality; white lines, no male spawning territoriality; hatched lines, equivocal. There are relatively many phylogenies that focus on intra-familial relationships. We found a number of these in Systematics, Historical Ecology, and North American Freshwater Fishes (Mayden, 1992): Smith (1992)(Catostomidae), Cavender & Coburn (1992) and Coburn & Cavender (1992) (Cyprinidae), and Lundberg (1992) (Ictaluridae). The phylogeny for Gasterosteidae was obtained from McLennan et al. (1988), and alternative phylogenies for Characidae were found in Lucena (1993) and Uj (1990) cited in Tree of life (Ortı́ & Vari, 1997). For the relationships among darters (Percidae) we used Turner (1997) and Song et al. (1998). The relationships J. EVOL. BIOL. 18 (2005) 371–382 ª 2004 EUROPEAN SOCIETY FOR EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY 374 M. AH-KING ET AL. Fig. 1 Continued. between families and orders are less well resolved. We used Fink & Fink (1981) for the relationships within Ostariophysi. Clupeomorpha was positioned as a sister group of Ostariophysi according to Lecointre & Nelson (1996). Salmonids were placed together with osmerids as a sister group of esocoids and neoteleosts (Johnson & Patterson, 1996). For the relationships within Osteoglossiformes we used Lauder & Liem (1983), Nelson (1994), Kumazawa & Nishida (2000) and Lavoué et al. (2000). Alternative phylogenies of Gasterosteiformes were found in Pietsch (1978), Johnson & Patterson (1993) and Nelson (1994). In addition, Smith & Stearley (1989) J. EVOL. BIOL. 18 (2005) 371–382 ª 2004 EUROPEAN SOCIETY FOR EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY Male care evolution in fish 375 Fig. 2 Alternative composite tree. (a) Optimization of male care. Black lines, male care; white lines, no male care; hatched lines, equivocal. (b) Optimization of male spawning territoriality. Black lines, male spawning territoriality; white lines, no male spawning territoriality; hatched lines, equivocal. was used for the relationships within Salmoniformes, Parker & Kornfield (1995) for the relationships within Cyprinodontiformes and Grande & Bemis (1996) for the relationships within Acipenseriformes. Cobitidae was included in Cypriniformes (Nelson, 1994). Acipenseri- formes, Amia, Lepisosteidae and Teleostei were positioned according to Nelson (1994) and Bemis et al. (1997), and finally Johnson & Patterson (1993) proposed a scheme for the relationships within Percomorpha, which we have used. J. EVOL. BIOL. 18 (2005) 371–382 ª 2004 EUROPEAN SOCIETY FOR EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY 376 M. AH-KING ET AL. Characiiformes Cyprinidae Fig. 2 Continued. Optimization of characters The characters were optimized using parsimony in MacClade 4.0 (Maddison & Maddison, 2000). We optimized mating system as a two state-character, group spawning and pair spawning with or without sneakers/ additional males. We dealt with equivocal branches by using two extreme solutions, either maximizing or minimizing male care branches over the whole tree. The same method was used for equivocal optimizations of mating system and territoriality. The number of origins shown in the results are the minimum and maximum J. EVOL. BIOL. 18 (2005) 371–382 ª 2004 EUROPEAN SOCIETY FOR EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY Male care evolution in fish numbers, which depend on which particular optimization and phylogeny that was used. When a character optimization for a polytomy (i.e. when the phylogenetic relationships are not resolved for three or more species) was equivocal, we used the most parsimonious optimization. For example, in a polytomy of three species for which no care was inferred to be the ancestral state, and where male care was present in two and absent in one species, we assumed that male care had evolved only once. Matched pairs comparisons As explained above, we collected data on male care, territoriality and mating system and constructed two alternative composite trees, based on the species with such information. Territoriality and mating system were optimized using maximum parsimony and these variables were considered independent in separate analyses. The optimizations were used to identify independent matched pairs contrasted by alternate states, following the logic first presented by Burt (1989) (see also Møller & Birkhead, 1992; Wickman, 1992; Reed & Nee, 1995; Lindenfors & Tullberg, 1998; Goodwin et al., 2002). For each comparison, the paths linking the taxa do not cross the path of another comparison, and thus the comparisons are phylogenetically separate (Felsenstein, 1985; Burt, 1989; Reed & Nee, 1995; Purvis & Bromham, 1997; Maddison, 2000). Once a matched pair has been identified it cannot be accounted for again and comparisons are sought among taxa that are as closely related as possible in the remaining phylogeny (see for example Lindenfors et al., 2003). Therefore a matched pair need not be sister clades. Thereafter, instances of transitions to male parental care were scored within each contrast, under the null hypothesis that transitions from nonparental (the presumed ancestral state) to male care would be independent of the state for either territoriality or mating system. A simple binomial test was used to test the null hypothesis. One important confounding factor in this analysis is the size of the contrasting clades, such that more speciose clades would have a higher background probability of transitions to male care. To partially compensate for the lack of data on species number we have compared whether or not male care has evolved in each contrasting clade instead of the number of times this has occurred, using a sign test. Results Male care has evolved in a few nonterritorial taxa such as Copella arnoldi and Syngnathidae. However in the majority of cases territoriality has preceded male care (Figs 1 and 2) and in an analysis based on phylogenetically independent comparisons male care is significantly more likely to evolve in territorial than nonterritorial lineages (C 14 ¼ 0, P < 0.001; Table 1). Because nest building can 377 Table 1 Matched-pairs with respect to the presence/absence of territoriality. The presence of male care origins is compared within each pair. Ranges in male care origins and alternative matched pairs are due to alternative phylogenies and/or to equivocal parts of the tree resulting in alternative optimizations. Male care originates more often in the territorial group in each of the 15 comparisons involving a difference in male care origins (sign test: C 14 ¼ 0, P < 0.001). Post-ovipositional male care (excluding cases with nest-building only, indicated by *) originates more often in the territorial group in each of the 12 pairs with a difference in origins of post-ovipositional male care (sign test: C 11 ¼ 0, P < 0.01). Paired taxa No. of origins of male care 1. Territorial: Protopterus–Neoceratodus Nonterritorial: Acipenser–Polyodon 2. Territorial: Amia calva Nonterritorial: Lepisosteus osseus 3. Territorial: Scleropages–Mormyrops Nonterritorial: Clupea 4. Territorial: Silurus–Eigenmannia Nonterritorial: Aphylocharax–Pristobrycon 5. Territorial*: Hoplias Nonterritorial*: Copella 6. Territorial: Moxostoma, Erimyzon Nonterritorial: Catostomus 7 or 8 and 9: 7. Territorial: Rhodeus, Pseudorasbora Nonterritorial: Ptycocheilus 8. Territorial: Rhodeus Nonterritorial: Tinca 9. Territorial: Pseudorasbora Nonterritorial: Ptychocheilus 10. Territorial: Zacco Nonterritorial: Ctenopharyngodon 11. Territorial: Abramis Nonterritorial*: Notemigonus or Scardinius 12. Territorial: Rhinichthys, Agosia Nonterritorial: Gila 13. Territorial: Exoglossum–Margariscus Nonterritorial: Phoxinus 14. Territorial: Campostoma, Dionda Nonterritorial: Hybognathus 15. Territorial: Notropis Nonterritorial: Ericymba 16. Territorial: Luxilus–Pimephales Nonterritorial: Richardsonius, Clinostomus 17. Territorial: Thymallus Nonterritorial: Coregonus 18. Territorial: Porichthys Nonterritorial: Percopsis or Lota, Gadus 19. Territorial: Aulorhynchus–Gasterosteus Nonterritorial: Syngnathus–Fistularia 20. Territorial: Cyprinodon, Jordanella Nonterritorial: Menidia–Mugil 21. Territorial: Stizostedion lucioperca Nonterritorial: S. vitreum or S. canadense 22. Territorial: Etheostoma nigrum–E. zonale Nonterritorial: E. spectabile 23. Territorial: Etheostoma flabellare Nonterritorial: E. caeruleum 1 0 1 0 2–3 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 2–3 0 1 0 0 0 1 + 1 0 0 0 1 0 1–2 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 *Male care originates in the ancestor to Hoplias and Copella. Origin of male nest building (no post-ovipositional care). J. EVOL. BIOL. 18 (2005) 371–382 ª 2004 EUROPEAN SOCIETY FOR EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY 378 M. AH-KING ET AL. be regarded as merely mating effort we also carried out an analysis based on male post-oviposition care only and found that male care thus defined was also significantly more likely to evolve in territorial lineages (C 11 ¼ 0, P < 0.01; Table 1). In our data set we found no case where male parental care has evolved in a group spawning species, and when contrasting group spawning with different kinds of pair spawning in a matched-pairs comparison, we found that male care evolution is significantly related to pair spawning (C 15–16 ¼ 0, P < 0.001; Table 2). This was also the case when only taxa with post-oviposition male care were included (C 11–12 ¼ 0, P < 0.01; Table 2). More interesting, perhaps, is the question of whether the occurrence of male parental care in pair-spawning species is influenced by the occurrence of additional males such as sneakers. Therefore, we also conducted a test where we excluded all group-spawning taxa and contrasted pair spawning with and without sneakers in phylogenetically matched pairs. In our data set there were only six such contrasts, and in two of these male care originated in the lineage without sneakers whereas in four it evolved in the lineage with sneakers (C 5 ¼ 2, n.s.; Table 3). Only considering post-ovipositional care (i.e. excluding nest building only) produced the same result (C 7 ¼ 3, n.s.; Table 3). Thus, judged from this limited set of observations we conclude that the evolution of male care is independent of whether a male can monopolize a female during spawning or not. Discussion In this study, we found a strong effect of both mating system and territoriality on the evolution of paternal care in fishes. Basically, paternal care does not evolve under group spawning, but only in species with pair spawning, even when this involves additional males such as sneakers. That male care evolves more often in territorial species has often been assumed, but to our knowledge not previously been tested. Furthermore, Ridley (1978) pointed out that territoriality could have evolved secondarily after male care, as well as before, so that territoriality could be a result of male care rather than a cause of it. However, our results show that the majority of male care origins were preceded by spawning territoriality. In the following we discuss our results in relation to parental certainty and sexual selection. The low degree of paternal certainty in group spawnings is probably the reason why paternal care does not evolve under this mating system, and because parental certainty is low for both sexes the same result is expected for all kinds of parental care. However, our results show clearly that parental certainty need not be complete, such as when a female is monopolized, but that male care can evolve also under pair spawning where there are additional males present. In species with male care and sneakers, however, the paired male has been found to Table 2 Male care origins in matched-pair comparisons of mating systems. Group spawning (G) is contrasted against pair spawning with or without sneakers/additional males (P). The presence of male care origins are compared within each pair. Ranges in male care origins and alternative matched pairs are due to alternative phylogenies and/or to equivocal parts of the tree resulting in alternative optimizations. Male care originates in the pair spawning group with or without sneakers/additional males in each of the 16–17 comparisons where there is a difference in male care origins (sign test: C 15– 16 ¼ 0, P < 0.001). Post-ovipositional male care (excluding taxa in which male care consists of only nest-building, indicated by asterisks) originates in the pair spawning species with or without sneakers/ additional males in each of the 12–13 comparisons where there is a difference in male care origins (sign test: C 11–12 ¼ 0, P < 0.01). Paired taxa 1 or 2 and 3: 1. P: Protopterus–Neoceratodus G: Acipenser–Polyodon 2. P: Amia calva G: Lepisosteus osseus 3. P: Scleropages–Mormyrops G: Acipenser–Polyodon 4. P: Silurus glanis, Eigenmannia G: Clupea 5. P: Hoplias–Copella G: Aphyocharax–Pristobrycon 6. P: Erimyzon, Moxostoma, Catostomus G: Brachydanio–Cyprinus 7 or 8 and 9: 7. P: Rhodeus ocellatus, Pseudorasbora parva G: Notemigonus–Clinostomus 8. P: Rhodeus ocellatus G: Tinca tinca 9. P: Pseudorasbora parva G: Scardinius–Clinostomus 10. P: Zacco temminicki G: Ctenopharyngodon idella 11. P: Agosia G: Rhinichthys 12. P: Exoglossum G: Phenacobius 13. P: Campostoma G: Dionda 14. P: Nocomis G: Hybognathus 15. P: Semotilus G: Couesius 16. P: Luxilus G: Lythrurus or Hybopsis–Notropis 17 or 18 and 19: 17. P: Cyprinella spiloptera, C. lutrensis, Pimephales promelas G: Lythurus 18. P: Cyprinella spiloptera G: C. lutrensis 19. P: Pimephales promelas G: Lythurus 20. P: Thymallus thymallus G: Coregonus lavaretus, C. autumnalis, C artedii No. of origins of male care 1 0 1 0 2–3 0 1 0 1 0 1* 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1* 0 1 0 1* 0 1 0 1 0 1* 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 J. EVOL. BIOL. 18 (2005) 371–382 ª 2004 EUROPEAN SOCIETY FOR EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY Male care evolution in fish Table 2 Continued. No. of origins of male care Paired taxa 21. P: Mallotus G: Hypomesus 22. P: Pleuronectes G: Esox 23. P: Porichthys notatus G: Percopsis omiscomaycus or Gadus morhua 24. P: Lota lota lota G: Lota lota maculosa 25. P: Aulorhynchus–Jordanella G: Menidia menidia, Mugil cephalus 26. P: Sander lucioperca G: Stizostedion vitreum or S. canadense 27. P: Etheostoma nigrum, E. zonale, E. spectabile, E. flabellare G: E. caeruleum 28. P: Percina maculata, Percina caprodes G: Perca 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 3–4 0 1 0 2 0 0 0 *Origin of male nest building (no post-ovipositional care). Table 3 Male care origins in matched-pair comparisons of pair spawning groups with or without sneakers/additional males. Pair spawning (P) is contrasted against pair spawning with sneakers (S) or trio spawning (T). Ranges are due to alternative phylogenies or optimizations. In two of the comparisons male care origin is more common without sneakers and in four comparisons it is more common in the presence of sneakers (sign test: C 5 ¼ 2, n.s.). The corresponding numbers for origins of post-oviposition care (excluding taxa in which male care consists of only nest-building, indicated by asterisks) are three and five comparisons, respectively (sign test: C 7 ¼ 3, n.s.). Paired taxa No. of origins of male care 1. P: Misgurnus T/S: Moxostoma–Zacco 2. P: Exoglossum, Nocomis S: Campostoma 3. P: Luxilus S: Semotilus 4. P: Cyprinella spiloptera S: Pimephales 5. P: Lota lota lota S: Porichthys 6. P : Culaea S : Pungitius 7. P: Syngnathus–Eurypegasus S: Macroramphosus 8. P: Pleuronectes S: Aulorhynchus–Gasterosteus 9. P: Jordanella S: Cyprinodon 10. P: Percina maculata S: P. caprodes 0 1 + 1* 1–2 1* 1* 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1–2 1 0 0 0 *Origin of male nest building (no post-ovipositional care). Male care is already present in the ancestor to this group. 379 fertilize a majority of the eggs under natural spawning conditions: 81% in bluegill sunfish (Fu et al., 2001) and 89% in sand gobies (Jones et al., 2001). Nevertheless, sneakers might compensate their lower fertilization probability in a particular spawning by participating in a larger number of spawnings. In bluegill sunfish, for example, sneakers and guarding males have similar individual fitnesses (Neff, 2001). In the few contrasts with pair spawning that differed with respect to additional males (Table 3), the difference in male care origins was not significant. In other words, at this point we cannot say that paternity is important, within the range of variation that occurs in pair spawning, for the evolution of male care. However, this question needs further investigation using an extended data set. The male-caring species in our analysis are both pair spawning and (with a few exceptions such as pipefishes and seahorses, Appendix 1, Table 2) territorial. Thus, it could be argued that it is pair spawning as such that is important for the evolution of paternal care and not territoriality. Indeed, because many group spawners are territorial as well, and paternal care never evolves in group spawners, we hold that territoriality is not a sufficient condition for male care to evolve. Instead, we reckon that it is the combination of territoriality with pair spawning that has favoured the evolution of paternal care. Then, why are these conditions important for male care? We believe that paternity is likely to increase above a certain minimum threshold under a combination of pairspawning and territoriality. This is so because under these circumstances a male may both be better able to guard his mate against other males, and to spawn sequentially with multiple females, in which case the cost of male care in terms of missed opportunities to mate becomes very low (Loiselle, 1978; Gross & Sargent, 1985). In our sample of care-giving species such males were reported to mate with several, in some cases up to seven, females as in Spinachia spinachia (Jones et al., 1998), and in Hypoptychus dybowskii males have been reported to guard 30 egg masses (Narimatsu & Munehara, 2001). Thus, care giving under pair spawning and territoriality is fully compatible with a high degree of polygyny. Some of our analyses included only post-mating care, i.e. we excluded species that only built nests. For these species, too, territoriality was a strong predictor of male care. In a recent model Wade & Shuster (2002) concluded that if only some males are successful in mating, these males will have higher average reproductive rate than females and will thereby gain more by deserting the young. Wade & Shuster (2002) also argued that their analysis supports the hypothesis that there is a trade-off between pre-mating investment in competition and post-mating investment in offspring care (Wade, 1979). Most ESS models of the evolution of uniparental care assume that caring is incompatible with continued J. EVOL. BIOL. 18 (2005) 371–382 ª 2004 EUROPEAN SOCIETY FOR EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY 380 M. AH-KING ET AL. mating (Maynard Smith, 1977; Wade & Shuster, 2002). As this is not the case in fishes, our results are not in accordance with Wade’s hypothesis, because then we would predict that territorial males are less likely to invest in the care of young. Instead, as mentioned, territoriality probably lowers the cost of care (Loiselle, 1978; Gross & Sargent, 1985) and the ability to guard multiple clutches eliminates the conflict between mating effort and parental effort. In addition, if caring becomes attractive to females, male care could imply a benefit in terms of increased mating success because of female preference, instead of a cost (Tallamy, 2000). Possibly, certain aspects of male care can also improve paternity. For example, a nest structure may help the male to defend his brood, not only against predators, but also against sneaker males. Consistent with this, sand goby males have been shown to build extra small nest openings before mating when sneaker males are present (Svensson & Kvarnemo, 2003). Once parental care has evolved, there is probably a feedback between the levels of care and the intensity of sexual selection (Reynolds, 1996). For example, the variance in male reproductive success (and thus the intensity of sexual selection) could increase when males care, especially if females prefer to mate with males that already guard eggs from other females in their nests (e.g. Ridley & Rechten, 1981; Marconato & Bisazza, 1986; Knapp & Sargent, 1989). Indeed, a comparative study on fish suggests that female choice of caring males has been important for the evolution of male care among egg-guarding species (M. Ah-King unpublished). Species that care for eggs by carrying them on the body or in mouth- or brood pouches, on the other hand, have limited space for the eggs, which suggests that sexual selection may have been less important for the evolution of male care in these species. Male care has evolved many times in fish and we conclude that it has been favoured by a combination of territoriality and pair-spawning with multiple females sequentially. Probably these traits have the joint effect of lowering sperm competition (increased paternity security) and lowering the cost of missed mating opportunities. These traits have promoted male care in a group of organisms where parental care may not be very costly in the first place. Acknowledgments We thank P. Lindenfors for discussion and help with the early analyses, S.O. Kullander for providing us with references on fish phylogenies, L. Beesley for some initial literature search on male care. We also thank C. Sargent, K. Lindström, R. Fuller and L. Page for valuable information on darters, A. Gronell for information on Aulostomus, O. Svensson for information on cichlids, K. Lindström for information on Jordanella floridae and M. Gage for data on zebrafish and phylogenetic information. S. Balshine-Earn, Jacob Höglund, Arne Mooers, John Reynolds, Tom Tregenza and Lars Werdelin provided very helpful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. This work was financially supported by the Swedish Research Council (grants to CK and to BT) and the Foundation of Emil and Lydia Kinander, and was in part done while CK was on a post-doc at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Supplementary material The following material is available from http:// www.blackwellpublishing.com/products/journals/suppmat/ jeb/jeb823/jeb823sm.htm Appendix A1 Mating systems, parental care, male territoriality and references used. References Balshine-Earn, S. & Earn, D.J.D. 1998. On the evolutionary pathway of parental care in mouth-brooding cichlid fish. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B. 265: 2217–2222. Baylis, J.R. 1981. The evolution of parental care in fishes, with reference to Darwin’s rule of male sexual selection. Env. Biol. Fish. 6: 223–251. Bemis, W.E., Findeis, E.K. & Grande, L. 1997. An overview of Acipenseriformes. Env. Biol. Fish. 48: 25–71. Blumer, L.S. 1979. Male parental care in the bony fishes. Q. Rev. Biol. 54: 149–161. 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