scholarly journals Consistent individual differences in fathering in threespined stickleback Gasterosteus aculeatus

2012 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura R. Stein ◽  
Alison M. Bell
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Predation Risk ◽  
Parenting Styles ◽  
Gasterosteus Aculeatus ◽  
Paternal Care ◽  
Parental Behavior ◽  
Temporal Changes ◽  
Egg Mass ◽  
Activity Levels ◽  
Second Clutch

Abstract There is growing evidence that individual animals show consistent differences in behavior. For example, individual threespined stickleback fish differ in how they react to predators and how aggressive they are during social interactions with con-specifics. A relatively unexplored but potentially important axis of variation is parental behavior. In sticklebacks, fathers provide all of the parental care that is necessary for offspring survival; therefore paternal care is directly tied to fitness. In this study, we assessed whether individual male sticklebacks differ consistently from each other in parental behavior. We recorded visits to nest, total time fanning, and activity levels of 11 individual males every day throughout one clutch, and then allowed the males to breed again. Half of the males were exposed to predation risk while parenting during the first clutch, and the other half of the males experienced predation risk during the second clutch. We detected dramatic temporal changes in parental behaviors over the course of the clutch: for example, total time fanning increased six-fold prior to eggs hatching, then decreased to approximately zero. Despite these temporal changes, males retained their individually-distinctive parenting styles within a clutch that could not be explained by differences in body size or egg mass. Moreover, individual differences in parenting were maintained when males reproduced for a second time. Males that were exposed to simulated predation risk briefly decreased fanning and increased activity levels. Altogether, these results show that individual sticklebacks consistently differ from each other in how they behave as parents.

scholarly journals Relationship between habitat distribution, growth rate, and plasticity in congeneric larval dragonflies

2005 ◽  
Vol 83 (8) ◽  
pp. 1128-1133 ◽  
Author(s):  
S J McCauley
Keyword(s):  
Growth Rate ◽  
Predation Risk ◽  
Growth Rates ◽  
Lepomis Macrochirus ◽  
Negative Relationship ◽  
Activity Level ◽  
Activity Levels ◽  
Habitat Distribution ◽  
Invertebrate Predators ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship between habitat distribution, growth rate, and plasticity was examined in the larvae of three species of dragonfly in the genus Libellula L., 1758. Growth rates were compared under three conditions: in the absence of predation risk, in the presence of sunfish (Lepomis macrochirus Rafinesque, 1819; Pisciformes: Centrachidae), and in the presence of invertebrate predators. I assessed how the habitat distributions of the three species of dragonfly, specifically how commonly they occur with fish, were related to growth rates and to the level of growth plasticity under different levels of perceived predation risk. There was a negative relationship between growth rate and the frequency with which species coexist with sunfish. Growth-rate plasticity was limited and does not appear to be important in determining the ability of species to coexist with alternative top predator types. Only one species exhibited growth-rate plasticity, decreasing growth in response to the predator with which it most commonly coexists but not to the species which poses the greatest predation risk. A comparison of growth rates and activity levels in the presence and absence of these predators suggests that growth and activity level parallel each other in these species.

The Eighth Month

2019 ◽  
pp. 103-116
Author(s):  
Vanessa LoBue
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Parenting Styles ◽  
Infant Temperament

This chapter describes the development of the fetus in the eighth month of pregnancy. This month, as the author’s family plans a baby shower for her, she contemplates what a newborn might need. This is a difficult task, she finds, as newborns have unique personalities right from the beginning of life, with different styles of reacting to the environment and different needs. The chapter is devoted to discussing infant temperament and how individual differences in temperament shape a baby’s personality from birth into the preschool years, predicting whether the infant is likely to be shy or socially outgoing as a child. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how different parenting styles might fit best with different infant temperaments and what a parent might do to help a potentially difficult newborn.

scholarly journals Maternal predator-exposure has lifelong consequences for offspring learning in threespined sticklebacks

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 932-935 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel P. Roche ◽  
Katie E. McGhee ◽  
Alison M. Bell
Keyword(s):  
Predation Risk ◽  
Maternal Effects ◽  
Discrimination Task ◽  
Food Reward ◽  
Gasterosteus Aculeatus ◽  
Learning Performance ◽  
Behavioural Plasticity ◽  
Adult Offspring ◽  
Important Form ◽  
Model Predator

Learning is an important form of phenotypic plasticity that allows organisms to adjust their behaviour to the environment. An individual's learning performance can be affected by its mother's environment. For example, mothers exposed to stressors, such as restraint and forced swimming, often produce offspring with impaired learning performance. However, it is unclear whether there are maternal effects on offspring learning when mothers are exposed to ecologically relevant stressors, such as predation risk. Here, we examined whether maternal predator-exposure affects adult offsprings’ learning of a discrimination task in threespined sticklebacks ( Gasterosteus aculeatus ). Mothers were either repeatedly chased by a model predator (predator-exposed) or not (unexposed) while producing eggs. Performance of adult offspring from predator-exposed and unexposed mothers was assessed in a discrimination task that paired a particular coloured chamber with a food reward. Following training, all offspring learned the colour-association, but offspring of predator-exposed mothers located the food reward more slowly than offspring of unexposed mothers. This pattern was not driven by initial differences in exploratory behaviour. These results demonstrate that an ecologically relevant stressor (predation risk) can induce maternal effects on offspring learning, and perhaps behavioural plasticity more generally, that last into adulthood.

Within-clutch egg-size variation in a subsocial bug: the positional effect hypothesis

2006 ◽  
Vol 84 (11) ◽  
pp. 1540-1544 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shin-ichi Kudo
Keyword(s):  
Predation Risk ◽  
Clutch Size ◽  
Egg Size ◽  
Size Variation ◽  
Instar Nymph ◽  
Offspring Size ◽  
Egg Mass ◽  
Female Body Size ◽  
Positional Effect ◽  
Effect Hypothesis

If there are differences in predation risk among the offspring within a clutch, parents should allocate less resources to the offspring facing higher risk. Predation risk, and thus offspring size, may depend on the spatial position of individual offspring within a clutch. To test this positional effect hypothesis, I examined egg-size (egg-mass) variation in the subsocial bug Elasmucha signoreti Scott, 1874 (Hemiptera: Acanthosomatidae). In subsocial insects, including Elasmucha , in which females guard their clutches against predators by covering the clutch with their bodies, there are large differences in survival between offspring at the centre and at the periphery of the clutch. There was considerable variation in reproductive output among females; female body size was positively correlated with egg mass but not with clutch size. Females laid significantly lighter eggs in the peripheral, and thus more vulnerable, part of the clutch. No phenotypic trade-off between egg mass and clutch size was detected. Egg mass was positively correlated with hatched first-instar nymph mass. Thus, E. signoreti females seem to allocate their resources according to the different predation risks faced by the offspring within a clutch. I suggest that the positional effect hypothesis can generally be applicable to species whose females lay eggs in clutches and that the eggs suffer different mortality rates which depend on their spatial positions within the clutch.

scholarly journals Reproductive ecology and behavior of Thoropa miliaris (Spix, 1824) (Anura, Leptodactylidae, Telmatobiinae)

2004 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ariovaldo Antonio Giaretta ◽  
Kátia Gomes Facure
Keyword(s):  
Paternal Care ◽  
Single Layer ◽  
Southeastern Brazil ◽  
Rock Surface ◽  
Limiting Factor ◽  
Egg Mass ◽  
Short Supply ◽  
Egg Masses ◽  
Valid Taxon ◽  
And Behavior

Thoropa species are distributed in southern and southeastern Brazil and have semiterrestrial tadpoles on rocky environments. Herein, we provide further data on reproduction, paternal care and tadpole cannibalism in T. miliaris. Guarding males were tested for disturbances in their egg masses. Egg masses were laid in stripes of wet rock; eggs were in a single layer and were adhered to the rock surface, roots, and to one another. The tadpoles hatched between four and six days. The egg number in two egg masses was 750 and 1190; eggs were gray and the yolk were about 1.7 mm in diameter; 2.3 mm with the jelly capsule. Aggressive interactions were observed between males. Males remained with their egg masses during the night and reacted aggressively to the experimental disturbances. Late stage tadpoles were found cannibalizing eggs. An egg mass in a recently formed wet stripe died from drought. The strips of wet rock are the only places where eggs and tadpoles can develop and represent a limiting factor for reproduction because they occur in short supply. For the females, the selection of newly formed wet strips may represent a trade-off between the advantages of using places free of cannibalistic and/or competitive tadpoles and the risks of losing offspring by drought. Our results do not support Cycloramphinae as a valid taxon, indicating that the morphological and behavioral similarities between Thoropa and Cycloramphus species should be interpreted as convergence.

Density dependence and numerosity in fright stimulated aggregation behaviour of shoaling fish

1995 ◽  
Vol 350 (1334) ◽  
pp. 381-390 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Predation Risk ◽  
Gasterosteus Aculeatus ◽  
Light Stimulus ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Critical Distance ◽  
The Other ◽  
Size Difference ◽  
Total Risk ◽  
Aggregation Behaviour ◽  
Test Fish

Single three-spined sticklebacks, Gasterosteus aculeatus , were frightened with a light stimulus simulating an aerial predator while facing a choice between two conspecific display shoals of different membership sizes. We observed which shoal the test fish approached. Initially, both display shoals were equidistant from the test fish. The smaller shoal was then moved gradually closer whereas the larger shoal stayed at a constant distance. This experiment modelled an early stage of the aggregation behaviour of sticklebacks in response to perceived imminent predation risk. When the two display shoals were equidistant from the test fish, we found that the test animal preferred approaching the larger display shoal, and the magnitude of this preference increased with increasing display shoal size difference. This demonstrates that the aggregation behaviour of frightened sticklebacks is density dependent. Further, we found that sticklebacks made a trade-off between the distance to a display shoal and its membership size. In particular, for a given ratio of display shoal sizes, there was a critical distance at which half of all tested animals turned to one and the other half to the other display shoal. This demonstrates that the observed aggregation behaviour is also distance dependent. We introduce several elementary models which formalize individual predation risk and explore how distance and display shoal size contribute to total risk. In particular, we distinguish between total risk as a product or as a sum of the risk components associated with swimming distance and display shoal size, respectively. All models follow the ‘partial preferences’ paradigm of McNamara & Houston ( Anim. Behav . 35, 1084-1099 (1987)). We compare how closely these models match the observed data and how well they predict the empirical critical distances. We find a consistent discrepancy between theory and data, which we resolve by invoking a fundamental perceptual limit (numerosity) for shoal size discrimination.

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