Maternal care and altered social phenotype in a recently collected stock of Astatotilapia burtoni cichlid fish
For over 30 years, the African cichlid fish, Astatotilapia burtoni, has been an important model system for studying the mechanisms underlying socially mediated behavioral change, with the focus being the dominance behavior of males. A recently collected wild-stock (WS) of this species invigorates in...
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Published in | Integrative and comparative biology Vol. 49; no. 6; pp. 660 - 673 |
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Main Authors | , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
England
Oxford University Press
01.12.2009
Oxford Publishing Limited (England) |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | For over 30 years, the African cichlid fish, Astatotilapia burtoni, has been an important model system for studying the mechanisms underlying socially mediated behavioral change, with the focus being the dominance behavior of males. A recently collected wild-stock (WS) of this species invigorates interest in parallel studies of females' behavior. Here, we describe a robust 'good-mother' phenotype, increased maternal affiliation in fry, and subtle differences in males' behavior that are exhibited by this new stock. While the females of both the laboratory-stock (LS) and the WS brood the developing fry in their buccal cavity, only the WS continues to provide maternal care after initial release of the fry while the LS engage in filial cannibalism. We show that weight loss during starvation, either during brooding or with restriction of food, is greater in the LS than in the WS; thus, the observed behavioral differences may be tied to metabolic differences. The WS also exhibits a robust androgen response to challenge during the maternal care phase. Given the increasing power of genomic tools available for this species, the comparison of these two stocks will offer the opportunity to investigate the genetic and genomic basis of behavioral differences. |
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Bibliography: | ArticleID:icp085 istex:2ECB84982A828C2969F641887FBF293031467DE4 ark:/67375/HXZ-NXN8NQJ0-S ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 1540-7063 1557-7023 |
DOI: | 10.1093/icb/icp085 |