4. Discussion
The trials carried out in this study showed no significant difference
in mating success between wild type and red males as the primary
sire, suggesting that in Nile tilapia under the conditions of our study,
red or wild type colouration in males does not influence female
preferences. However, the results indicate that there were differences
between the wild type and red females in terms of the frequency of
secondary male paternity (which occurred more often in batches of
eggs from red females than from wild type females), and also suggest
that there may have been differences in secondary male paternity
between different groups of wild type females.
Colour-based mating may be of importance between species or
populations in at least some species of cichlids, for example in the
Pseudotropheus zebra complex, where colour pattern is the majorlower survival than wild type tilapia due to higher predation and
lower mating success, but the present study suggests that mating
success in mixed feral populations may be comparable to that of
wild type tilapia. This would, however, have to be investigated in
more natural spawning habitats than that used in the present
study.