Aggression towards shared enemies by heterospecific and conspecific cichlid fish neighbours

Abstract

Successful territory defence is a prerequisite for reproduction across many taxa, and often highly sensitive to the actions of territorial neighbours. Nevertheless, to date, assessments of the significance of the behaviour of heterospecific neighbours have been infrequent and taxonomically restricted. In this field study, I examined the importance of both heterospecific and conspecific neighbours in a biparental fish, the convict cichlid, Amatitlania siquia. This was done by assessing the colonisation rates of vacant territories, the rates of aggression by the territory holders, and the overall rates of aggression towards intruders, in treatments that controlled the proximity of both neighbour types. Convict cichlid pairs colonised vacant nesting resources (territory locations) at similar rates independent of the proximity of heterospecific (moga, Hypsophrys nicaraguensis) or conspecific neighbours. However, a model of sympatric cichlid intruder was subjected to considerably higher overall levels of aggression when mogas were nearby. In contrast, the proximity of conspecifics did not have a significant effect on the overall aggression towards the intruder. These results suggest that previously demonstrated higher survival of convict cichlid broods in close proximity of mogas may be driven by aggression towards shared enemies. No conclusive evidence was found regarding whether mogas also influence convict cichlids’ investment into anti-intruder aggression: the results show a marginally non-significant trend, and a moderately large effect size, to the direction of a lower investment in mogas’, but not conspecifics’, proximity. More generally, heterospecific neighbours may provide protective benefits in a wider range of ecological settings than commonly considered.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s00442-019-04483-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Convict cichlid parental defense behavior towards conspecific and heterospecific parental pairs influences natural pair distribution

“…While the difference in linear distance between pairs showed a non-signi cant trend, this is not surprising as linear distances alone may not su ciently capture the habitat complexities as they pertain to potential interactions with nearby individuals. Convict cichlids with heterospeci c pair neighbors may bene t by higher offspring survival (Lehtonen, 2008) and through shared territorial aggression (Lehtonen 2019).…”

Ecological and evolutionary consequences of selective interspecific information use

“…Pied flycatchers (Ficedula hypoleuca) may gain fitness benefits from heterospecific attraction (Forsman et al, 2002(Forsman et al, , 2007, suggesting selection for the capability of selective social information use and consequent plastic convergence of nesting site characteristics to those of the information sources. Furthermore, prey species who share predators may benefit from coexistence through shared alarm calls and aggression towards the joint predator (Dutour et al, 2021;Lehtonen, 2019;Martínez et al, 2022). Different bat species eavesdrop on each other's feeding calls and use the social information other species provide in their own feeding decisions, creating a complex eavesdropping network between species (Lewanzik et al, 2019).…”

“…Various mechanisms of interspecific social information use could explain aggregations of heterospecifics. In convict cichlids ( Amatitlania siquia ), broods have higher survival in proximity of mogas ( Hypsophrys nicaraguensis ) and this could be because of aggression towards shared enemies enhances the coexistence (Lehtonen, 2019). Alarm signals regarding a shared predator may be highly valuable across different prey species groups and may create taxonomically diverse eavesdropping networks in different ecosystems (Dutour et al, 2021; Martínez et al, 2022).…”

“…Interspecific information use can affect important aspects of species' ecology, such as foraging (Farine et al, 2015; Hämäläinen, Hoppitt, et al, 2021; Keen et al, 2020; Lewanzik et al, 2019; Romero‐González, Royka, et al, 2020; Romero‐González, Solvi, et al, 2020), breeding site selection (Chiatante, 2019; Kivelä et al, 2014; Morinay, Forsman, & Doligez, 2020; Szymkowiak et al, 2017), offspring survival (Lehtonen, 2019), reproductive investment (Forsman et al, 2012; Hämäläinen et al, 2022), predator avoidance (Dutour et al, 2021; Martínez et al, 2022) and dispersal decisions (Armansin et al, 2020; Bocedi et al, 2012; Cantor et al, 2021; Cayuela et al, 2018), conceivably leading to population‐ and community‐level consequences (e.g. variation in species' densities, coexistence and intensity of competition; Goodale et al, 2010).…”

Hydrogeomorphological controls on reach‐scale distributions of cichlid nest sites in a small neotropical river

“…To more fully understand the adaptive significance of nest-site selection, it will be necessary to relate nesting-measured by the successful rearing of young past the parental care stage-to abiotic and biotic factors in the environment, as has been done by other authors (e.g. Lehtonen, 2008Lehtonen, , 2019. Perrone (1978) found that in Gatun Lake, Panama, larger male blackbelt cichlids were able to unseat smaller males in better feeding grounds and that the offspring of larger males grew faster.…”