Abstract
Across animal taxa, exclusive female offspring care has evolved repeatedly from biparental care, suggesting that the latter becomes evolutionarily unstable under certain conditions. Both the attributes of a species and the environment it experiences can help to predict shifts from one particular care mode to another. Nevertheless, factors inducing differences in care strategies among closely related species, or seasonal variation within species, have been subject to surprisingly little empirical testing. Here, we report the results of a field-based study that examined both among and within species variation in mate desertion in five species of closely related Nicaraguan cichlid fish in the genera Amphilophus and Amatitlania. The results show a link between female body size and male involvement in offspring care. Specifically, the larger the species the less often males were found to provide extended care. Furthermore, we found that solitary females became more common towards the end of the breeding season. We discuss the implications of this finding in the context of previous theoretical and empirical contributions regarding the frequency of offspring desertion by males.
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Acknowledgements
K. McKaye, E. van den Berghe, J. McCrary and L. López provided working facilities and logistic help in Nicaragua. M. Geiger helped with many of the dives and with the sinking of “Flor de Caña”. L.R. Morales Herrera, R.I. Membreño Andino and M.-E. Bernal provided additional assistance in the field. The manuscript also benefited from helpful comments by O. Svensson, P.A. Svensson and two anonymous reviewers. MARENA, Nicaragua, issued the necessary working permits. Financial support was provided by the Academy of Finland (TKL and KL), the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany (TKL), Oskar Öflund’s Foundation (TKL), the Australian Research Council (BBMW) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (AM). The study complies with the current laws of Nicaragua.
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Lehtonen, T.K., Wong, B.B.M., Lindström, K. et al. Species divergence and seasonal succession in rates of mate desertion in closely related Neotropical cichlid fishes. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 65, 607–612 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-010-1061-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-010-1061-6