Cannibalism in cultured Eurasian perch, Perca fluviatilis (Actinopterygii: Perciformes: Percidae)—Implication of maternal influence, kinship, and sex ratio of progenies

Abstract

Król J., Dauchot N., Mandiki S.N.M., Van Cutsem P., Kestemont P. 2015. Cannibalism in cultured Eurasian perch, Perca fluviatilis (Actinopterygii: Perciformes: Percidae)-Implication of maternal influence, kinship, and sex ratio of progenies. Acta Ichthyol. Piscat. 45 (1): 65-73.Background. Intra cohort cannibalism is one of the main factors that affects the growth and survival of cultured fishes, especially in the larval and juvenile stages. Cannibalism is mainly influenced by extrinsic factors, but intrinsic effects cannot be excluded. As regards the family Percidae, all-female rearing can be advantageous for the fish growth, but does this solution have some impact on cannibalism? The main objective of this study was to investigate potential differences in cannibalism rate and its relation to further growth and survival between mixed-sex and all-female Eurasian perch, Perca fluviatilis Linnaeus, 1758, larvae reared in full-siblings and halfsiblings groups. The additional purpose of this study was to determine whether there was some maternal influence on the cannibalism-survival-growth dynamics in cultured Eurasian perch larvae. Materials and methods. Cannibalism, survival, and growth were studied in mixed-sex and all-female progenies of Eurasian perch larvae. Ten-day old larvae (body weight of 20 mg) originating from the crosses of four parents (two females: f1 and f2; one male: ma; and one neomale: mc) were reared over 77 days at 22°C under the light regime of 16 : 8 (light : dark) in replicated groups consisting of mixed-sex full siblings (f1ma, f2ma), all-female full siblings (f1mc, f2mc), or mixed-sex half-siblings (f1ma + f2ma) and all-female groups (f1mc + f2mc).Results. At the end of the experiment, there was no sexual growth dimorphism and no sex-biased cannibalism. Neither the effect of sibling versus half-sibling groups, nor effects of normal progeny versus all-female population on survival and cannibalism rate were significant. By contrast, maternal effects on cannibalism were observed, chiefly as regards type I cannibalism (partial and tail-first ingestion), and they impacted on survival, as mortality from other causes (complete cannibalism or others) was independent from maternal origin. Conclusion.There is no particular disadvantage of rearing monosex female progenies in term of cannibalism and survival, whereas this culture-management solution is prone to produce long-term advantages for the perch growth, owing to the faster growth of female fish.Keywords: cannibalism, percids, larvae, juvenile, all female, dam effectThe growth dynamics of a cohort of fish larvae is frequently affected by multiple interactive and non-interactive factors such as environment and population structure, respectively (Kestemont et al. 2003). High size variation can facilitate the emergence of cannibalism (Baras and Jobling 2002). Cannibalistic behaviour also has some effect on size heterogeneity, which can increase or decrease, depending on prey size preference, alternative food resources and proportions of fish exercis...

When behavioural geographic differentiation matters: inter-populational comparison of aggressiveness and group structure in the European perch

“…the ability of a genotype to produce more than one phenotype when exposed to different environments; Pigliucci et al 2006;Kelly et al 2012) is an alternative explanation of the observed behavioural differentiations between populations (DeWitt and Scheiner, 2004) with behaviour reflecting the strategy adopted under the influence of environmental factors. This was suggested as the driving factor for cannibalism in P. fluviatilis (Krol et al 2015 and references therein) as well as in other species (e.g. Svenning and Borgstrøm 2005).…”

“…Since we have no information on the parents of egg sampled, we cannot exclude the influence of maternal effects which were demonstrated in P. fluviatilis for other traits (Babiak et al 2004;Krol et al 2015).…”

Effect of dietary l-tryptophan on cannibalism, survival and growth in pikeperch Sander lucioperca (L.) post-larvae

“…The key to the further development of the production of the pikeperch is to optimize conditions for rearing both, the larval and the juvenile stages. In farmed percid fish species, intra-cohort cannibalism, besides swim bladder inflation and non-feeding behavior, is an important factor that affects survival, especially during the early life stages of fish Kestemont et al 2003;Babiak et al 2004;Hamza et al 2007; Mandiki et al 2007;Szkudlarek and Zakęś 2007;Król et al 2015). Cannibalism is intra-specific predation.…”