The role of serotonin in the modulation of cooperative behavior

José R. Paula, João P. Messias, Alexandra S. Grutter, Redouan Bshary and Marta C. Soares

Behavioral Ecology, 2015, vol. 26, issue 4, 1005-1012

Abstract: Cleaning behavior is known as a classic example of cooperation between unrelated individuals. Although much is known of the behavioral processes underlying cooperative behavior, the physiological pathways mediating cooperation remain relatively obscure. Here, we show that altering the activity of serotonin on wild cleaner wrasses Labroides dimidiatus has causal effects on both social and cooperative activities. These cleaners cooperate by removing ectoparasites from visiting "client" reef fishes but prefer to eat client mucus, which constitutes "cheating." We found that enhancing serotonin made cleaner wrasses more motivated to engage in cleaning behavior and more likely to provide physical contact to clients (tactile stimulation) without spending more time cleaning or cheating more often. Blocking serotonin-mediated response resulted in an apparent decrease in cleaners’ cheating levels and in an increase in cleaners’ aggressiveness toward smaller conspecifics. Our results provide first evidence that serotonin is a neuromodulatory driver of cooperative behavioral activities and contribute to the understanding of neural pathways of cooperation.

Date: 2015
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/beheco/arv039 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:beheco:v:26:y:2015:i:4:p:1005-1012.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Behavioral Ecology is currently edited by Louise Barrett

More articles in Behavioral Ecology from International Society for Behavioral Ecology Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().