Biparental division of roles in the convict cichlid fish: influence of intruder numbers and locations
| Autor: | N. Santangelo, M. Richter, Murray Itzkowitz |
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| Rok vydání: | 2005 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Ethology Ecology & Evolution. 17:1-15 |
| ISSN: | 1828-7131 0394-9370 |
| Popis: | The convict cichlid fish (Archocentrus nigrofasciatus) has a parental division of roles in which the male spends much of his time defending the territory while the female remains near to the offspring. This division is not obligate because both parents do switch roles for brief periods and, in the absence of the mate, both sexes will perform all roles. We predicted that the division of roles depended on each parent being able to successfully complete its task. If a task could not be completed by a single parent, role specializations would be reduced resulting in a division of labor. That is, both parents would perform the same task. We modified the relative importance of the defensive role by changing the number and location of conspecific intruders. When we increased the number of distant intruders from one to two, we found that the division of roles was unaffected. Neither parent increased its defensive activities, although they did attack both intruders. Furthermore, when females did attack an intruder... |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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