Cleaner fish really do clean

The cleaning of client fish by cleaner fish is one of the most highly developed interspecific communication systems known. But even though it is a seemingly obvious mutualism, several quantitative studies have failed to show any benefit for the clients, leading to the hypothesis that cleaner fish ar...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inNature (London) Vol. 398; no. 6729; pp. 672 - 673
Main Author Grutter, Alexandra S
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London Nature Publishing Group 22.04.1999
Subjects
Analysis of covariance
Cleaning
Experiments
Fish parasites
Hemigymnus melapterus
Hypotheses
Isopoda
Labroides dimidiatus
Marine
Mutualism
Parasites
Quantitative research
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:The cleaning of client fish by cleaner fish is one of the most highly developed interspecific communication systems known. But even though it is a seemingly obvious mutualism, several quantitative studies have failed to show any benefit for the clients, leading to the hypothesis that cleaner fish are 'behavioural parasites' that exploit the sensory system of the clients to obtain food, rather than to increase the client's fitness. The cleaner fish Labroides dimidiatus eats parasitic gnathiid isopods, which decline in number on the client fish Hemigymnus melapterus daily between dawn and sunset. I find that the cleaner fish reduces parasite abundance, resulting in a 4.5-fold difference within 12 hours, supporting the hypothesis that cleaning behaviour is mutualistic.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ObjectType-Article-2
ObjectType-Feature-1
ISSN:0028-0836
1476-4687
DOI:10.1038/19443