No abstract

Crypsis, or the ability to avoid detection and/or recognition, is an important and widespread anti-predator strategy across the animal kingdom. Many animals are able to camouflage themselves by adapting their body colour to the local environment. In particular, rapid changes in body colour are often critical to the survival of cryptic prey which rely on evading detection by predators. This is especially pertinent for animals subject to spatio-temporal variability in their environment, as they must adapt to acute changes in their visual surroundings. However, which features of the local environment are most relevant is not well understood. In particular, little is known about how social context interacts with other environmental stimuli to influence crypsis. Here, we use a common cryptic prey animal, the goby ( Pseudogobius species 2) to examine how the presence and body colour of conspecifics influence the rate and extent to which gobies change colour. We find that solitary gobies change colour to match their background faster and to a greater extent than gobies in pairs. Further, we find that this relationship holds irrespective of the colour of nearby conspecifics. This study demonstrates the importance of social context in mediating colour change in cryptic animals.

Immunocompetence and reproduction are among the most important determinants of fitness. However, energetic and metabolic constraints create conflict between these two life-history traits. While many studies have explored the relationship between immune activity and reproductive fitness in birds and mammals inoculated with bacterial endotoxin, very few have focused on fish. Fish have been neglected in this area due, in part, to the claim that they are largely resistant to the immune effects of endotoxins. However, the present study suggests that they are susceptible to significant effects with respect to reproductive behaviour. Here, we examined the reproductive behaviour of male guppies following exposure to bacterial lipopolysaccharides (LPS) in comparison to that of male guppies in a control treatment. Additionally, we investigated the responses of females to these males. We show that although immune challenge does not suppress general activity in male guppies, it significantly reduces mating effort. While females showed no difference in general activity as a function of male treatments, they did exhibit reduced group cohesion in the presence of LPS-exposed males. We discuss this in the context of sickness behaviours, social avoidance of immune-challenged individuals and the effects of mounting an immune response on reproductive behaviour.