Effects of salinity on nest-building behaviour in a marine fish

Abstract

BackgroundParental allocation and reproductive success are often strongly influenced by environmental factors. In this respect, salinity is a key factor influencing species distributions and community structure in aquatic animals. Nevertheless, the effects of salinity on reproductive behaviours are not well known. Here, we used the sand goby (Pomatoschistus minutus), a small fish inhabiting a range of different salinities, to experimentally assess the effects of changes in salinity on nesting behaviour, a key component of reproduction in sand gobies and many other taxa.ResultsWe found that salinity levels influenced some aspects of male nesting behaviour (i.e. nest entrance size) but not others (i.e. latency to build a nest, choice of nest site, sand on top of nest) and that small and large individuals were differently affected. In particular, the importance of body size in adjustment of nest entrance depended on the salinity level.ConclusionThe results support the prediction that geographically widespread aquatic species, such as sand gobies, are able to perform well under a range of salinity levels. The phenotype by environment interaction found between male size and behavioural responses to salinity can, in turn, help to explain the notable variation observed in nest-building (and other) behaviours closely linked to reproduction.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12898-016-0067-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Environmental change mediates mate choice for an extended phenotype, but not for mate quality

“…) and salinity (Lehtonen et al. ) on nest structure. The difference between our results and those of these previous studies may arise from differences in how the manipulated ecological parameter alters the costs and benefits of different nest structures and how these relate to body size.…”

“…Similarly, large and small males may respond differentially to increasing salinity levels, due to the varying levels of osmotic stress imposed on different body sizes and/or the size‐dependent abilities of male sand gobies to protect embryos from infection at lower salinities (Lehtonen et al. ). The lack of a size‐dependent effect on nest structure or the adjustment of nest structure, seen here, suggests that the costs and benefits incurred by small and large males in different DO conditions either do not differ (Lehtonen et al.…”

Male and female preferences for nest characteristics under paternal care

“…Artificial nests were modeled around halved clay flower pots (38 mm diameter) as the core nesting substrate. We aimed at modeling nest traits within the natural range of nest architecture variation (Japoshvili et al, 2012;Jones & Reynolds, 1999a;Kalb et al, 2016;Kvarnemo et al, 1998;Lehtonen et al, 2016;Lissåker & Kvarnemo, 2006). In contrast to naturally built nests by males where nest appearance usually comes in a coupled set of traits, our use of model nests allowed us to independently modify the two nest traits within the natural range of variation.…”

“…Nest takeovers are frequent (Lindström, 1992;Lindström & Pampoulie, 2005;Magnhagen, 1992), potentially diminishing the reliability of nests as indicators of male condition (Björk & Kvarnemo, 2012). Nest-building effort varies with environmental conditions, including the presence of predators (Lehtonen, Lindström, & Wong, 2013) and competitor males (Svensson & Kvarnemo, 2003), the prevailing oxygen concentration (Lissåker & Kvarnemo, 2006), salinity (Lehtonen et al, 2016), and male size (Lehtonen et al, 2013).…”

Exposure to salinity stress cause ovarian disruption in a stenohaline freshwater teleost, Heteropneustes fossilis (Bloch, 1794)

“…Alteration in any abiotic factors such as temperature, photoperiod, pH, dissolved oxygen and salinity of aquatic ecosystem due to global climate change and anthropogenic activities affect homoeostasis of aquatic organisms dwell in that habitat (Acharjee, Chaube, & Joy, ; Eissa & Zaki, ; Hyatt, Anderson, & O’Dommell, ; Venancio et al, ). Amongst them, salinity is a key abiotic stressor to cause significant changes in various physiological traits as well as in species composition of aquatic bodies (Bosker, Santoro, & Melvin, ; Canedo‐Arguelles et al, ; Lehtonen, Wong, & Kvarnemo, ; Wedderburn, Barnes, & Hillyard, ). Salinization of freshwater aquatic bodies may be due to several impacts of climate change, such as flooding and invasion of seawater, drought, precipitation and evaporation of water during seasonal variations.…”