scholarly journals Consistent behavioral syndrome across seasons in an invasive freshwater fish

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliane Lukas ◽  
Gregor Kalinkat ◽  
Friedrich Wilhelm Miesen ◽  
Tim Landgraf ◽  
Jens Krause ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Poecilia Reticulata ◽  
Field Tests ◽  
Range Shift ◽  
Tropical Fish ◽  
Social Partner ◽  
Behavioral Syndrome ◽  
Source Population ◽  
Random Drift ◽  
Behavioral Types ◽  
Dispersal Tendency

AbstractUnderstanding the linkage between behavioral types and dispersal tendency has become a pressing issue in light of global change and biological invasions. Here, we explore whether dispersing individuals exhibit behavioral types that differ from those remaining in the source population. We investigated a feral population of guppies (Poecilia reticulata) that undergoes a yearly range shift cycle. Guppies are among the most widespread invasive species in the world, but in temperate regions these tropical fish can only survive in winter-warm freshwaters. Established in a thermally-altered stream in Germany, guppies are confined to a warm-water influx in winter, but can spread to peripheral parts as these become thermally accessible. We sampled fish from the source population and a winter-abandoned site in March, June and August. Fish were tested for boldness, sociability and activity involving open-field tests including interactions with a robotic social partner. Guppies differed consistently among each other in all three traits. Behavioral trait expression in the source population differed across seasons, however, we could not detect differences between source and downstream populations. Instead, all sampled populations exhibited a remarkably stable behavioral syndrome between boldness and activity despite strong seasonal changes in water temperature and associated environmental factors. We conclude that random drift (opposed to personality-biased dispersal) is a more likely dispersal mode for guppies, at least in the investigated stream. In the face of fluctuating environments, guppies seem to be extremely effective in keeping behavioral expressions constant, which could help explain their successful invasion and adaptation to disturbed habitats.

scholarly journals Consistent Behavioral Syndrome Across Seasons in an Invasive Freshwater Fish

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliane Lukas ◽  
Gregor Kalinkat ◽  
Friedrich Wilhelm Miesen ◽  
Tim Landgraf ◽  
Jens Krause ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Poecilia Reticulata ◽  
Field Tests ◽  
Range Shift ◽  
Tropical Fish ◽  
Social Partner ◽  
Behavioral Syndrome ◽  
Source Population ◽  
Random Drift ◽  
Behavioral Types ◽  
Dispersal Tendency

Understanding the linkage between behavioral types and dispersal tendency has become a pressing issue in light of global change and biological invasions. Here, we explore whether dispersing individuals exhibit behavioral types that differ from those remaining in the source population. We investigated a feral population of guppies (Poecilia reticulata) that undergoes a yearly range shift cycle. Guppies are among the most widespread invasive species in the world, but in temperate regions these tropical fish can only survive in winter-warm freshwaters. Established in a thermally-altered stream in Germany, guppies are confined to a warm-water influx in winter, but can spread to peripheral parts as these become thermally accessible. We sampled fish from the source population and a winter-abandoned site in March, June and August. Fish were tested for boldness, sociability and activity involving open-field tests including interactions with a robotic social partner. Guppies differed consistently among each other in all three traits within each sample. Average trait expression in the source population differed across seasons, however, we could not detect differences between source and downstream population. Instead, all populations exhibited a remarkably stable behavioral syndrome between boldness and activity despite strong seasonal changes in water temperature and associated environmental factors. We conclude that random drift (opposed to personality-biased dispersal) is a more likely dispersal mode for guppies, at least in the investigated stream. In the face of fluctuating environments, guppies seem to be extremely effective in keeping behavioral expressions constant, which could help explain their successful invasion and adaptation to new and disturbed habitats.

scholarly journals Trinidadian guppies use a social heuristic that can support cooperation among non-kin

2020 ◽  
Vol 287 (1934) ◽  
pp. 20200487 ◽  
Author(s):  
Safi K. Darden ◽  
Richard James ◽  
James M. Cave ◽  
Josefine Bohr Brask ◽  
Darren P. Croft
Keyword(s):  
Poecilia Reticulata ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Inclusive Fitness ◽  
Single Point ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Evolution Of Cooperation ◽  
Social Partner ◽  
Proximate Mechanisms ◽  
Cognitive Limitations ◽  
Fitness Benefits

Cooperation among non-kin is well documented in humans and widespread in non-human animals, but explaining the occurrence of cooperation in the absence of inclusive fitness benefits has proven a significant challenge. Current theoretical explanations converge on a single point: cooperators can prevail when they cluster in social space. However, we know very little about the real-world mechanisms that drive such clustering, particularly in systems where cognitive limitations make it unlikely that mechanisms such as score keeping and reputation are at play. Here, we show that Trinidadian guppies ( Poecilia reticulata ) use a ‘walk away’ strategy, a simple social heuristic by which assortment by cooperativeness can come about among mobile agents. Guppies cooperate during predator inspection and we found that when experiencing defection in this context, individuals prefer to move to a new social environment, despite having no prior information about this new social group. Our results provide evidence in non-human animals that individuals use a simple social partner updating strategy in response to defection, supporting theoretical work applying heuristics to understanding the proximate mechanisms underpinning the evolution of cooperation among non-kin.

scholarly journals Predicting range-shift success potential for tropical marine fishes using external morphology

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 20160505 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shannen M. Smith ◽  
Rebecca J. Fox ◽  
Jennifer M. Donelson ◽  
Megan L. Head ◽  
David J. Booth
Keyword(s):  
Fish Larvae ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Invasion Success ◽  
Range Shift ◽  
Tropical Fish ◽  
Range Shifts ◽  
Native Community ◽  
The Family ◽  
Moorish Idol ◽  
New Habitats

With global change accelerating the rate of species' range shifts, predicting which are most likely to establish viable populations in their new habitats is key to understanding how biological systems will respond. Annually, in Australia, tropical fish larvae from the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) are transported south via the East Australian Current (EAC), settling into temperate coastal habitats for the summer period, before experiencing near-100% mortality in winter. However, within 10 years, predicted winter ocean temperatures for the southeast coast of Australia will remain high enough for more of these so-called ‘tropical vagrants’ to survive over winter. We used a method of morphological niche analysis, previously shown to be an effective predictor of invasion success by fishes, to project which vagrants have the greatest likelihood of undergoing successful range shifts under these new climatic conditions. We find that species from the family of butterflyfishes (Chaetodontidae), and the moorish idol, Zanclus cornutus , are most likely to be able to exploit new niches within the ecosystem once physiological barriers to overwintering by tropical vagrant species are removed. Overall, the position of vagrants within the morphospace was strongly skewed, suggesting that impending competitive pressures may impact disproportionately on particular parts of the native community.

scholarly journals Courtship behaviour influences social partner choice in male guppies

Behaviour ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 157 (10-11) ◽  
pp. 923-947
Author(s):  
Heather L. Auld ◽  
Jean-Guy J. Godin
Keyword(s):  
Poecilia Reticulata ◽  
Public Information ◽  
Partner Choice ◽  
Courtship Behaviour ◽  
Social Partner ◽  
Male Courtship ◽  
Association Preference ◽  
Social Associations ◽  
Courtship Displays ◽  
Social Association

Abstract Although male courtship displays have evolved primarily to sexually attract females, they also generate inadvertent public information that potentially reveals the courter’s relative sexual attractiveness and the perceived quality and sexual receptivity of the female being courted to nearby eavesdropping male competitors, who in turn may use this information to bias their social partner choices. We tested this hypothesis by first presenting individual eavesdropping male guppies (Poecilia reticulata) the opportunity to simultaneously observe two demonstrator males whose courtship behaviour was manipulated experimentally to differ, following which we tested them for their preference to associate socially with either demonstrator males. Test males preferentially associated with the demonstrator male who they had previously observed courting a female over the other (non-courting) demonstrator. This social association preference was not expressed in the absence of a female to court. Our findings highlight the potential for sexual behaviour influencing male-male social associations in nature.

scholarly journals Contrasting Population and Diet Influences on Gut Length of an Omnivorous Tropical Fish, the Trinidadian Guppy (Poecilia reticulata)

PLoS ONE ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. e0136079 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugenia Zandonà ◽  
Sonya K. Auer ◽  
Susan S. Kilham ◽  
David N. Reznick
Keyword(s):  
Poecilia Reticulata ◽  
Tropical Fish ◽  
Trinidadian Guppy ◽  
Gut Length

scholarly journals Using a robotic fish to investigate individual differences in social responsiveness in the guppy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Bierbach ◽  
Tim Landgraf ◽  
Pawel Romanczuk ◽  
Juliane Lukas ◽  
Hai Nguyen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Poecilia Reticulata ◽  
Activity Level ◽  
Social Responsiveness ◽  
Behavioral Syndrome ◽  
Fish Robot ◽  
Behavioral Traits ◽  
Biomimetic Robots ◽  
The Social

AbstractResponding towards the actions of others is one of the most important behavioral traits whenever animals of the same species interact. Mutual influences among interacting individuals may modulate the social responsiveness seen and thus makes it often difficult to study the level and variation of individuality in responsiveness. Here, biomimetic robots (BRs) that are accepted as conspecifics but controlled by the experimenter can be a useful tool. Studying the interactions of live animals with BRs allows pinpointing the live animal’s level of responsiveness by removing confounding mutuality. In this paper, we show that live guppies (Poecilia reticulata) exhibit consistent differences among each other in their responsiveness when interacting with a biomimetic fish robot - ‘Robofish’ - and a live companion. It has been repeatedly suggested that social responsiveness correlates with other individual behavioral traits like risk-taking behavior (‘boldness’) or activity level. We tested this assumption in a second experiment. Interestingly, our detailed analysis of individual differences in social responsiveness using the Robofish, suggests that responsiveness is an independent trait, not part of a larger behavioral syndrome formed by boldness and activity.

scholarly journals A large and diverse autosomal haplotype is associated with sex-linked colour polymorphism in the guppy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josephine R Paris ◽  
James R Whiting ◽  
Mitchel J Daniel ◽  
Joan Ferrer Obiol ◽  
Paul J Parsons ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Sexual Conflict ◽  
Poecilia Reticulata ◽  
Sex Chromosome ◽  
Colour Polymorphism ◽  
Colour Pattern ◽  
Whole Genome Sequencing Data ◽  
Source Population ◽  
Pattern Polymorphism ◽  
Colour Patterns

Colour polymorphism provides a tractable trait that can be harnessed to explore the evolution of sexual selection and sexual conflict. Male colour patterns of the Trinidadian guppy (Poecilia reticulata) are governed by both natural and sexual selection, and are typified by extreme pattern colour variation as a result of negative frequency dependent selection. Since guppy colour patterns are often inherited faithfully from fathers to sons, it has been historically presumed that colour genes are physically linked to sex determining loci as a supergene on the sex chromosome. Yet the actual identity and genomic location of the colour pattern genes has remained elusive. We phenotyped and genotyped four guppy Iso-Y lines, where colour was inherited along the patriline, but backcrossed into the stock population every 2 to 3 generations for 40 generations, thereby homogenising the genome at regions unrelated to colour. Using an unbiased phenotyping method to proportion colour pattern differences between and among the Iso-Y lines, we confirmed that the breeding design was successful in producing four distinct colour patterns. Our analysis of genome resequencing data of the four Iso-Y lines uncovered a surprising genetic architecture for colour pattern polymorphism. Genetic differentiation among Iso-Y lines was repeatedly associated with a large and diverse haplotype (~5Mb) on an autosome (LG1), not the sex chromosome (LG12). Moreover, the LG1 haplotype showed elevated linkage disequilibrium and exhibited evidence of sex-specific diversity when we examined whole-genome sequencing data of the natural source population. We hypothesise that colour pattern polymorphism is driven by Y-autosome epistasis, and conclude that predictions of sexual conflict should focus on incorporating the effects of epistasis in understanding complex adaptive architectures.

scholarly journals Social partner cooperativeness influences brain oxytocin transcription in Trinidadian guppies (Poecilia reticulata)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvia Dimitriadou ◽  
Eduarda M. Santos ◽  
Darren P. Croft ◽  
Ronny van Aerle ◽  
Indar W. Ramnarine ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Poecilia Reticulata ◽  
Transcriptional Response ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Social Partner ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Predation Threat ◽  
Predator Inspection ◽  
Social Partners ◽  
Aquatic Predators

AbstractFor non-kin cooperation to be maintained, individuals need to respond adaptively to the cooperative behaviour of their social partners. Currently, however, little is known about the biological responses of individuals to experiencing cooperation. Here, we quantify the neuroregulatory response of Trinidadian guppies (Poecilia reticulata) experiencing cooperation or defection by examining the transcriptional response of the oxytocin gene (oxt; also known as isotocin), which has been implicated in cooperative decision-making. We exposed wild-caught females to social environments where partners either cooperated or defected during predator inspection, or to a control (non-predator inspection) context, and quantified the relative transcription of the oxt gene. We tested an experimental group, originating from a site where individuals are under high predation threat and have previous experience of large aquatic predators (HP), and a control group, where individuals are under low predation threat and naïve to large aquatic predators (LP). In HP, but not LP, fish brain mid-section oxt relative transcription varied depending on social partner behaviour. HP fish experiencing cooperation during predator inspection had lower oxt transcription than those experiencing defection. This effect was not present in the control population or in the control context, where the behaviour of social partners did not affect oxt transcription. Our findings provide insight into the neuromodulation underpinning behavioural responses to social experiences, and ultimately to the proximate mechanisms underlying social decision-making.

scholarly journals Behavioral types as predictors of survival in Trinidadian guppies (Poecilia reticulata)

2010 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 919-926 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian R. Smith ◽  
Daniel T. Blumstein
Keyword(s):  
Poecilia Reticulata ◽  
Behavioral Types
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