<p>The brood-nosed pipefish <em>Syngnathus typhle</em> is a pipefish with reversed sex roles. Males prefer to mate with large and ornamented females and females compete for partners. It has previously been shown that males mate more randomly when water becomes turbid.</p><p>In the Baltic Sea eutrophication has become a severe problem with turbid waters as one consequence. Turbidity makes visual cues less effective and thus weakens sexual selection in species using vision to discriminate between partners. It also affects mate encounter rates in species using vision to find each other. A lower mate encounter rate means a weakening of sexual selection and that individuals mate more randomly. One way to compensate for lower visibility would be to use olfactory cues instead. In this study I investigated whether <em>S. typhle</em> could use olfactory cues to discriminate between sexes. I found no support that they could use olfactory cues to find a partner.</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA/oai:DiVA.org:hgo-613 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Creators | Lindqvist, Charlotte |
| Publisher | Gotland University, School of Culture, Energy and Environment |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, text |
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