Male reproductive adjustments to an introduced nest predator

Isaac Gravolin, Topi K Lehtonen, Nicholas D S Deal, Ulrika Candolin and Bob B M Wong

Behavioral Ecology, 2021, vol. 32, issue 6, 1163-1170

Abstract: Nest predation has a large impact on reproductive success in many taxa. Defending offspring from would-be predators can also be energetically and physiologically costly for parents. Thus, to maximize their reproductive payoffs, individuals should adjust their reproductive behaviors in relation to the presence of nest predators. However, effects of nest predator presence on parental behaviors across multiple reproductive contexts remain poorly understood, particularly in non-avian taxa. We ran a series of experiments to test how the presence of an egg predator, the invasive rockpool shrimp, Palaemon elegans, influences male reproductive decisions and egg survival in a species of fish with exclusive paternal care, the three-spined stickleback, Gasterosteus aculeatus. We found that, in the presence of shrimp, male sticklebacks were less likely to build a nest, invested less in territory defense against an intruder, and tended to fan eggs in their nest less and in shorter bouts, but did not alter their investment in courtship behavior. The predator’s presence also did not affect egg survival rates, suggesting that males effectively defended their brood from the shrimp. These results show that reproducing individuals can be highly responsive to the presence of nest predators and adjust their behavioral decisions accordingly across a suite of reproductive contexts.

Keywords: courtship; egg survival; parental care; predation; reproductive plasticity; territorial aggression (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/beheco/arab079 (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:32:y:2021:i:6:p:1163-1170.

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 ().