Females produce larger eggs for large males in a paternal mouthbrooding fish.

When individuals receive different returns from their reproductive investment dependent on mate quality, they are expected to invest more when breeding with higher quality mates. A number of studies over the past decade have shown that females may alter their reproductive effort depending on the quality/attractiveness of their mate. However, to date, despite extensive work on parental investment, such a differential allocation has not been demonstrated in fish. Indeed, so far only two studies from any taxon have suggested that females alter the quality of individual offspring according to the quality/attractiveness of their mate. The banggai cardinal fish is an obligate paternal mouth brooder where females lay few large eggs. It has previously been shown that male size determines clutch weight irrespective of female size in this species. In this study, I investigated whether females perform more courtship displays towards larger males and whether females allocate their reproductive effort depending on the size of their mate by experimentally assigning females to either large or small males. I found that females displayed more towards larger males, thereby suggesting a female preference for larger males. Further, females produced heavier eggs and heavier clutches but not more eggs when paired with large males. My experiments show that females in this species adjust their offspring weight and, thus, presumably offspring quality according to the size of their mate.