Title
Brood protection at a cost: Mouth brooding under hypoxia in an African cichlid
Author(s)
Corrie L.W.-C., Chapman L.J., Reardon E.E.
Published
2008
Publisher
Environmental Biology of Fishes
Abstract
This study quantifies the behavioral response of the widespread mouth brooding African cichlid Pseudocrenilabrus multicolor victoriae to progressive hypoxia. We exposed four gender/stage classes of P. multicolor (males, brooding females, females that had just released young, and non-brooding females) to progressive hypoxia and recorded the percent time spent using aquatic surface respiration (surface skimming, ASR) and gill ventilation rates. This was done for fish collected from three sites in Uganda (lake, swamp, and river) after long-term acclimation to normoxia. There was no effect of site of origin on response to hypoxia, but ASR thresholds did differ between gender/stage classes. The oxygen level (threshold) at which spent 10, 50, and 90% of their time at the surface using ASR was much higher for brooding females than for males, whereas ASR thresholds did not differ between non-brooding females and males. Similarly, the level at which ASR was initiated was much higher in brooding females than males, but did not differ between males and non-brooders, or between males and females than had just released young. The rate of gill ventilation dropped significantly in males and all stages of females after initiation of ASR, suggesting that surface skimming increases efficiency of oxygen acquisition. These results suggest that mouth brooding in female P. multicolor ASR improves oxygen uptake but imposes a cost in terms of time spent at the water surface, and this may affect maternal predation risk in low-oxygen habitats. © 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.
Keywords
acclimation; behavioral response; brood rearing; cichlid; hypoxia; oxygen; predation risk; reproductive cost; respiration; Africa; East Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa; Uganda; African cichlids; Cichlidae; Pseudocrenilabrus multicolor victoriae
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PUB10576