A model of oxygen-mediated filial cannibalism in fishes

Payne, Adam G.; Smith, Carl; Campbell, Andrew C.

doi:10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2003.09.026

Cited by 26 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…Concurrently, parental care is more common in the former than in the latter group [27] and a variety of parental care strategies directly improve the access of O 2 to the embryos. For example, parents may choose nest sites according to O 2 availability [28,29], fan their eggs to improve suboptimal O 2 conditions [30,31], increase nest opening size [32,33] or cannibalize some of the eggs to improve the oxygenation of the remaining embryos [34,35]. In fact, parental care in aquatic species may have evolved, at least partially, to protect developing embryos from low O 2 availability, which in turn could have favoured the evolution of larger egg sizes [6,36].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The evolutionary puzzle of egg size, oxygenation and parental care in aquatic environments

2015

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Offspring fitness generally improves with increasing egg size. Yet, eggs of most aquatic organisms are small. A common but largely untested assumption is that larger embryos require more oxygen than they can acquire through diffusion via the egg surface, constraining egg size evolution. However, we found no detrimental effects of large egg size on embryo growth and survival under hypoxic conditions. We tested this in the broad-nosed pipefish, Syngnathus typhle, whose males provide extensive care (nourishment, osmoregulation and oxygenation) to their young in a brood pouch on their bodies. We took advantage of this species' pronounced variation in egg size, correlating positively with female size, and tested the effect of hypoxia (40% dissolved oxygen) versus fully oxygenated (100%) water on embryo size and survival of large versus small eggs after 18 days of paternal brooding. Egg size did not affect embryo survival, regardless of O 2 treatment. While hypoxia affected embryo size negatively, both large and small eggs showed similar reductions in growth. Males in hypoxia ventilated more and males with large eggs swam more, but neither treatment affected their position in the water column. Overall, our results call into question the most common explanation for constrained egg size evolution in aquatic environments.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The evolutionary puzzle of egg size, oxygenation and parental care in aquatic environments

2015

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“…However, this explanation might be less likely to apply to species that lay their eggs in a single layer, like sand gobies, than to species that lay their eggs in clusters (Östlund-Nilsson 2002;Payne et al 2002Payne et al , 2004. A study of a brackish population of sand gobies found a negative effect of high egg density on egg survival, but similar to Lissåker et al (2003), this effect could not be explained by oxygen deficiency (Klug et al 2006).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 85%

“…In species that actively oxygenate their eggs, the cost of care increases with brood size, since larger numbers of eggs require more oxygen (Coleman and Fischer 1991;Perrin 1995;Payne et al 2002;Bakker et al 2006). Thus, there may be an upper limit to the number of eggs, or to the egg density, that can be adequately oxygenated in a nest at one time (Vickery et al 1988;Payne et al 2004). Furthermore, Sargent (1992) and Kraak (1996) have suggested that filial cannibalism could be a means to control infections.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Filial cannibalism in a nest-guarding fish: females prefer to spawn in nests with few eggs over many

Andrén

Kvarnemo

2014

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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In fish, fecundity correlates with female body size and egg-tending males often eat small broods. Therefore, small females may prefer to spawn in nests that already contain many eggs, to ensure the brood is as large as possible.In contrast, large females may prefer nests with few eggs, if high egg number or density has a negative effect on egg survival, or if there are drawbacks of spawning last in a nest. To test the hypothesis that female body size affects nest (and male mate) choice, using the sand goby (Pomatoschistus minutus), we allowed small and large females to choose between two males that were matched in size -one guarding a small clutch and the other a large clutch, respectively. We recorded where females spawned (measure of female preference), the combined brood size, male courtship, egg care and nest building. We also quantified the effect of brood size and egg density on egg survival in a separate data set. Although the combined broods did not exceed the small brood sizes that are at risk of being eaten, both small and large females preferred to spawn in nests with smaller clutch sizes. This preference could not be explained by more courtship or male parental effort, nor by reduced survival of larger or denser broods. Instead, our result might be explained by females avoiding the danger of cannibalism of young eggs by males or the risk of reduced egg health associated with being near the nest periphery.

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“…Unlike hetero cannibalism, the eating of non-relatives, filial cannibalism has the direct cost of decreased current reproductive success. Many theoreticians have made considerable effort to determine why this behavior evolved (Rohwer 1978;Sargent 1992;Sargent et al 1995;Lindströ m 2000;Kondoh and Okuda 2002;Payne et al 2004). For filial cannibalism to evolve, it is necessary that an increase in future reproduction outweigh the loss of current reproduction.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Filial cannibalism as a conditional strategy in males of a paternal mouthbrooding fish

2006

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Filial cannibalism is widespread in a variety of animal species and has been generally accepted as an adaptive behavior. Within a population, some individuals adopt filial cannibalism and others do not, in spite of its adaptiveness. There is little knowledge of how such a polymorphic trait is maintained in nature. To understand the underlying mechanism of cannibalistic polymorphism, we conducted a long-term field study that involved monitoring of the reproductive experience of marked individuals in the paternal mouthbrooding cardinalfish, Apogon doederleini, in which parental males sometimes cannibalize their entire broods. We assumed that filial cannibalism can be described as one of three possible strategies: alternative, mixed or conditional. Individual cannibalistic tendencies, represented by the number of entire brood cannibalism performed by each individual in one breeding season, showed a random distribution within the study population. Moreover, the individual cannibalistic tendencies were not consistent between two successive seasons. These results suggest that filial cannibalism is phenotypically plastic, thus eliminating the alternative strategy as a possible mechanism. Comparison of variance in reproductive success between cannibals and non-cannibals showed that observations were not in accordance with those expected in the case that males adopt filial cannibalism stochastically, that is, as a mixed strategy. Our previous studies have indicated that filial cannibalism is affected

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A model of oxygen-mediated filial cannibalism in fishes

Cited by 26 publications

References 55 publications

The evolutionary puzzle of egg size, oxygenation and parental care in aquatic environments

The evolutionary puzzle of egg size, oxygenation and parental care in aquatic environments

Filial cannibalism in a nest-guarding fish: females prefer to spawn in nests with few eggs over many

Filial cannibalism as a conditional strategy in males of a paternal mouthbrooding fish

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