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Wasteful carotenoid coloration and its effects on territorial behavior in a cichlid fish

The famously diverse body coloration of cichlid fish serves communicative functions in mating and social interactions including competition for resources. Here, we examined the effects of a color pattern trait—the width of a yellow bar on a black body—on territorial competition in males and females...

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Autores principales: Ziegelbecker, Angelika, Remele, Klaus, Pfeifhofer, Hartwig W., Sefc, Kristina M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer International Publishing 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8549929/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34720169
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10750-020-04354-3
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author Ziegelbecker, Angelika
Remele, Klaus
Pfeifhofer, Hartwig W.
Sefc, Kristina M.
author_facet Ziegelbecker, Angelika
Remele, Klaus
Pfeifhofer, Hartwig W.
Sefc, Kristina M.
author_sort Ziegelbecker, Angelika
collection PubMed
description The famously diverse body coloration of cichlid fish serves communicative functions in mating and social interactions including competition for resources. Here, we examined the effects of a color pattern trait—the width of a yellow bar on a black body—on territorial competition in males and females of a color variant (“Ikola”) of the Lake Tanganyika cichlid Tropheus. First, measuring integumentary carotenoid concentrations in the yellow and black body regions, we established that wider yellow bars require more carotenoids allocated to body coloration. However, we also detected high carotenoid concentrations in the black body regions (> 100 µg/g fresh skin), raising questions about the function of non-displayed integumentary carotenoids. Behavioral experiments showed that fish with wider bars were quicker to explore an unfamiliar area of the tank. In experiments including presentations of fish dummies, the bar width of ‘territorial’ dummies had no effect on the latency time which test fish took to intrude into the dummies’ territories. However, male test fish performed fewer aggressive acts against wide-barred than against narrow-barred dummy competitors. Our results suggest that intimidation by wide bars as well as correlations between bar width and explorative behavior may contribute to mediating success in territorial Tropheus “Ikola”. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s10750-020-04354-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-85499292021-10-29 Wasteful carotenoid coloration and its effects on territorial behavior in a cichlid fish Ziegelbecker, Angelika Remele, Klaus Pfeifhofer, Hartwig W. Sefc, Kristina M. Hydrobiologia Advances in Cichlid Research IV The famously diverse body coloration of cichlid fish serves communicative functions in mating and social interactions including competition for resources. Here, we examined the effects of a color pattern trait—the width of a yellow bar on a black body—on territorial competition in males and females of a color variant (“Ikola”) of the Lake Tanganyika cichlid Tropheus. First, measuring integumentary carotenoid concentrations in the yellow and black body regions, we established that wider yellow bars require more carotenoids allocated to body coloration. However, we also detected high carotenoid concentrations in the black body regions (> 100 µg/g fresh skin), raising questions about the function of non-displayed integumentary carotenoids. Behavioral experiments showed that fish with wider bars were quicker to explore an unfamiliar area of the tank. In experiments including presentations of fish dummies, the bar width of ‘territorial’ dummies had no effect on the latency time which test fish took to intrude into the dummies’ territories. However, male test fish performed fewer aggressive acts against wide-barred than against narrow-barred dummy competitors. Our results suggest that intimidation by wide bars as well as correlations between bar width and explorative behavior may contribute to mediating success in territorial Tropheus “Ikola”. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s10750-020-04354-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Springer International Publishing 2020-08-18 2021 /pmc/articles/PMC8549929/ /pubmed/34720169 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10750-020-04354-3 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Advances in Cichlid Research IV
Ziegelbecker, Angelika
Remele, Klaus
Pfeifhofer, Hartwig W.
Sefc, Kristina M.
Wasteful carotenoid coloration and its effects on territorial behavior in a cichlid fish
title Wasteful carotenoid coloration and its effects on territorial behavior in a cichlid fish
title_full Wasteful carotenoid coloration and its effects on territorial behavior in a cichlid fish
title_fullStr Wasteful carotenoid coloration and its effects on territorial behavior in a cichlid fish
title_full_unstemmed Wasteful carotenoid coloration and its effects on territorial behavior in a cichlid fish
title_short Wasteful carotenoid coloration and its effects on territorial behavior in a cichlid fish
title_sort wasteful carotenoid coloration and its effects on territorial behavior in a cichlid fish
topic Advances in Cichlid Research IV
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8549929/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34720169
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10750-020-04354-3
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