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What do male tench, Tinca tinca, advertise with morphological ornaments?

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Abstract

In contrast to females, tench Tinca tinca (L.) males have large pelvic fins with a thickened and bent second fin ray. Males also produce notable ventral protuberances during breeding, but the function of these male ornaments is not known. Using wild-caught fish, we found that both the size of pelvic fins and ventral protuberance were dependent on body mass/length ratio but not necessarily on condition. Plasma testosterone concentration and relative gonad mass were positively correlated with condition factor. Plasma testosterone concentration was not related to measures of non-specific immune function, but correlated positively with the size of pelvic fins corrected for body length. However, the studied male ornaments were not related to the measures of immune defence or to the load of Diplostomum spp. We did not find evidence for male–male dominance or female preference for large male characteristics within the natural variation in these traits. Thus, our study suggests that also other mechanisms than sexual selection on good genes might contribute to the maintenance of sexual dimorphism in tench.

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Acknowledgements

The study was conducted in the Biological Interactions graduate school of the Finnish Ministry of Education (A.V.). We thank Emil Aaltonen foundation for grant to R.K. We thank Meri Koskela for the help in fish catching and transportation, Ilmari Jokinen and Liisa Vainio for the help in the laboratory and the staff at Konnevesi research station for the study facilities. We appreciate the helpful comments from Laura Berger, Kevin Emerson, Beverly Ajie and Jouni Taskinen on the earlier versions of the manuscript. The fish were held in accordance to the guidelines of ASAB (2001) under licences from the Ethical Committee for Animal Research of the University of Jyväskylä (LS-14/02, LS-13/03), and all procedures meet the legal requirements in Finland.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological and Environmental Science, University of Jyväskylä, P.O. Box 35 (YAC341), 40014, Jyväskylä, Finland

    Anssi Vainikka, Raine Kortet, Satu Paukku & Juhani Pirhonen

  2. Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior, University of California, Davis, CA, USA

    Raine Kortet

  3. Department of Biology, University of Turku, Turku, Finland

    Markus J. Rantala

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  1. Anssi Vainikka
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  2. Raine Kortet
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  3. Satu Paukku
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  4. Markus J. Rantala
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Correspondence to Anssi Vainikka.

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Communicated by P. Gama Mota

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Vainikka, A., Kortet, R., Paukku, S. et al. What do male tench, Tinca tinca, advertise with morphological ornaments?. acta ethol 8, 70–78 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10211-005-0002-2

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