A new scientific study of Apistogramma mate selection has been published by Uwe Romer and Wolfgang Beisenherz in the journal "Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters". I have not read the article but have read a couple of summaries.
It seems that they placed a number of females in controlled situations and observed their mate selection. From what I have seen the females consistently chose wild type males over the more colorful domestic strains. Also, the females consistently avoided the males of closely related species. Here is a link to a report on the article
http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/pages/item.php?news=785
Here is a link to the journal if you wish to purchase (this is a professional journal and subscription is quite expensive but if you are interested you can pay to get a PDF of the article).
http://www.pfeil-verlag.de/04biol/pdf/ief16_4_05.pdf
This seems like interesting stuff. I hope someone has read the full article and can give us more detail.
Bob
It seems that they placed a number of females in controlled situations and observed their mate selection. From what I have seen the females consistently chose wild type males over the more colorful domestic strains. Also, the females consistently avoided the males of closely related species. Here is a link to a report on the article
http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/pages/item.php?news=785
Here is a link to the journal if you wish to purchase (this is a professional journal and subscription is quite expensive but if you are interested you can pay to get a PDF of the article).
http://www.pfeil-verlag.de/04biol/pdf/ief16_4_05.pdf
This seems like interesting stuff. I hope someone has read the full article and can give us more detail.
Bob