Many fish species are sex-role reversed, so the males take care of the eggs afte

Question

Many fish species are sex-role reversed, so the males take care of the eggs after fertilizing them. In some species, a male might be able to care for multiple nests simultaneously. Doing so may decrease the individual survival probability of each egg, however, because the male can't provide as much attention to each egg. If this is the case - if the fitness of each egg goes down as the number of nests he's caring for goes up, why would he was to care for multiple nests? Explain your answer. Many fish species are sex-role reversed, so the males take care of the eggs after fertilizing them. In some species, a male might be able to care for multiple nests simultaneously. Doing so may decrease the individual survival probability of each egg, however, because the male can't provide as much attention to each egg. If this is the case - if the fitness of each egg goes down as the number of nests he's caring for goes up, why would he was to care for multiple nests? Explain your answer.

Explanation / Answer

Males care for multiple nests by attracting more mates and taking care of them simultaneously.Guarding of eggs is often shareable which means it is no more energetically demanding to defend a nest with thousand eggs than a nest containing only a few eggs. Moreover the cost of providing care differs between different sexes and this is why males often take care of their offspring. In female fish fecundity is closely related to body size so if they take care of their young ones it will affect their reproductive rate. So this is done by males. Males do not lose their fecundity and they can court multiple females too.

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