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Ventilation or nest defense—parental care trade-offs in a fish with male care

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Abstract

Brood guarding animals face many critical trade-offs. Sand goby males (Pomatoschistus minutus) build nests with larger openings during low oxygen conditions, presumably to enhance ventilation. However, this may make the nest easier for egg predators to detect and harder for guarding males to defend. Manipulating oxygen level and predator presence (a small crab) for small and large males, we found support for a parental trade-off between fanning and nest defense. An increased fanning activity resulted in less time for guarding. Small males and males in low oxygen showed a higher fanning expenditure than large males and males in high oxygen, but surprisingly, filial cannibalism did not differ between these groups. Males built larger nest openings in low than high oxygen. However, males in both high and low oxygen treatments reduced their nest opening size in the presence of a predator, again indicating an important trade-off between ventilation and nest defense.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the staff at Klubban Biological Research Station, our field assistants Lotta Laurent, Daniel Simonsson, and Laila Fröberg. We also thank Kai Lindström, Ola Svensson, Sami Merilaita, Bertil Borg, Staffan Ulfstrand, and Ingrid Ahnesjö for advice and comments on the study and Wilhelm Leche’s Foundation, Stockholm Marine Sciences Association, Swedish Research Council, and Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for financial support. We have followed the Guidelines for the Use of Animals in Research as well as the legal requirements of Sweden and the experimental set-up has, also, been approved by the Swedish Research Animals Ethical Committee.

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  1. Charlotta Kvarnemo

    Present address: Department of Zoology, Göteborg University, P.O. Box 463, SE-40530, Gothenburg, Sweden

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Zoology, Stockholm University, SE-106 91, Stockholm, Sweden

    Maria Lissåker & Charlotta Kvarnemo

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  1. Maria Lissåker
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  2. Charlotta Kvarnemo
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Correspondence to Maria Lissåker.

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Communicated by K. Lindström

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Lissåker, M., Kvarnemo, C. Ventilation or nest defense—parental care trade-offs in a fish with male care. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 60, 864–873 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-006-0230-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-006-0230-0

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