Influence of lighting environment on social preferences in sticklebacks from two different photic habitats. II. Shoaling and mate preferences of lab-bred fishes

Abstract

Different environmental conditions may lead to diverse morphological, behavioral and physiological adaptations of different populations of the same species. Lighting conditions, for example, vary vastly especially between aquatic habitats, and have been shown to elicit adaptations. The availability of short-wave ultraviolet (UV) light is especially fluctuating, as UV wavelengths are attenuated strongly depending on water properties. The island of North Uist, Scotland, comprises two differential habitat types, tea-stained and clear-water lakes, varying considerably in UV transmission. In previous studies, wild-caught three-spined stickleback Gasterosteus aculeatus populations (three populations of each habitat type) were tested with respect to their shoaling and mate preferences for fish viewed under UV-present and UV-absent conditions. The results revealed a habitat-dependent preference of UV cues during shoal choice (tea-stained populations: preference for UV-absent condition in tea-stained water; clear-water populations: no preference in clear-water) but an overall preference for UV-present conditions during mate choice. To assess genetic influences on these behavioral patterns, similar experiments were conducted with lab-bred F1-generations of the same stickleback populations that were raised in a common environment (i.e. standardized clear-water conditions). Offspring of sticklebacks from tea-stained lakes tended to prefer shoals viewed under UV-absent conditions (only in tea-stained water), while sticklebacks from clear-water lakes showed a significant preference for the shoal viewed under UV-present conditions in clear-water but not in tea-stained water. Mate-preference experiments demonstrated that females from the tea-stained lakes significantly preferred and females from the clear-water lakes preferred by trend the male viewed under UV-present conditions in the clear-water treatment. The results for both shoaling- and mate-preference tests were largely similar for wild-caught and lab-bred sticklebacks, thus hinting at a genetic basis for the preference patterns.

Editorial: Sexual selection and environmental change: what do we know and what comes next?

“…The authors then used a common garden design to test shoaling preferences and mating preferences in lab-reared F1 fish originating from these 2 light environments. This follow-up experiment showed that social and mating preferences persist in fish reared under the same conditions, suggesting the presence of parental effects or heritability of these preference patterns ( Hiermes et al 2021b ).…”

Oviposition behaviour is not affected by ultraviolet light in a butterfly with sexually-dimorphic expression of a UV-sensitive opsin

“…Specifically, compared to overcast weather, butterflies made more attempts and laid more eggs on sunny days. For this reason, the majority of behavioural studies that have manipulated the presence of UV in the environment using UV-blocking filters have used standardized artificial lighting (Lewis et al, 2000;Greenwood et al, 2002;Honkavaara et al, 2008;Hiermes et al, 2021).…”

“…Specifically, compared to overcast weather, butterflies made more attempts and laid more eggs on sunny days. For this reason, the majority of behavioural studies that have manipulated the presence of UV in the environment using UV-blocking filters have used standardized artificial lighting (Lewis et al ., 2000; Greenwood et al ., 2002; Honkavaara et al ., 2008; Hiermes et al ., 2021). Nevertheless, under natural conditions-particularly in rainforests-light intensity varies rapidly (Endler, 1993), which will be better reflected by experiments manipulating wavelength under more natural conditions such as ours.…”