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Tug-of-war over reproduction in a cooperatively breeding cichlid

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Abstract

In group-living animals, dominants may suppress subordinate reproduction directly and indirectly, thereby skewing reproduction in their favour. In this study, we show experimentally that this ability (‘power’) is influenced by resource distribution and the body size difference between unrelated dominants and subordinates in the cichlid Neolamprologus pulcher. Reproduction was strongly skewed towards the dominant female, due to these females producing more and larger clutches and those clutches surviving egg eating better than those of subordinate females, but was not so when subordinates defended a patch. If breeding shelters were provided in two patches, subordinate females were more likely to exclusively defend a patch against the dominant female and breed, compared to when the same breeding resource was provided in one patch. Relatively large subordinate females were more likely to defend a patch and reproduce. Females also directly interfered with each other’s reproduction by eating the competitors’ eggs, at which dominants were more successful. Although dominant females benefited from subordinate females due to alloparental care and an increase in egg mass, they also showed costs due to reduced growth in the presence of subordinates. The results support the view that the dominant’s power to control subordinate reproduction determines reproductive partitioning, in agreement with the predictions from tug-of-war models of reproductive skew.

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Acknowledgement

We thank the Hasli members and particularly Nicole Basieux and Renate Zindel for discussions and comments, Rolf Eggler and Peter Stettler for technical assistance and Roger Schürch, Rick Bruintjes and the anonymous referees for comments on the manuscript. This work was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation grants SNSF 3100A-108473 and 3100A0-105626.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Behavioural Ecology, Zoological Institute, University of Bern, CH-3032, Hinterkappelen, Switzerland

    Dik Heg & Ian M. Hamilton

  2. Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology, Department of Mathematics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, 43210, U.S.A.

    Ian M. Hamilton

Authors
  1. Dik Heg
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  2. Ian M. Hamilton
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Correspondence to Dik Heg.

Additional information

Communicated by K. Lindström

Appendix

Appendix

Table 2

Table 2 Growth of dominant males, dominant females and subordinate females
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Heg, D., Hamilton, I.M. Tug-of-war over reproduction in a cooperatively breeding cichlid. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 62, 1249–1257 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-008-0553-0

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