Squeezing out the last egg: annual fish increase reproductive efforts in response to a predation threat
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Date
2018Author
Grégoir, Arnout Francis
Brendonck, Luc
Thoré, Eli Samuel Joachim
Philippe, Charlotte
Pinceel, Tom
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Both constitutive and inducible antipredator strategies are ubiquitous in nature and
serve to maximize fitness under a predation threat. Inducible strategies may be favored
over constitutive defenses depending on their relative cost and benefit and temporal
variability in predator presence. In African temporary ponds, annual killifish of the
genus Nothobranchius are variably exposed to predators, depending on whether larger
fish invade their habitat from nearby rivers during floods. Nonetheless, potential plastic
responses to predation risk are poorly known. Here, we studied whether
Nothobranchius furzeri individuals adjust their life history in response to a predation
threat. For this, we monitored key life history traits in response to cues that signal the
presence of predatory pumpkinseed sunfish (Lepomis gibbosus). While growth rate,
adult body size, age at maturation, and initial fecundity were not affected, peak and
total fecundity were higher in the predation risk treatment. This contrasts with known
life history strategies of killifish from permanent waters, which tend to reduce reproduction
in the presence of predators. Although our results show that N. furzeri individuals
are able to detect predators and respond to their presence by modulating their
reproductive output, these responses only become evident after a few clutches have
been deposited. Overall our findings suggest that, in the presence of a predation risk,
it can be beneficial to increase the production of life stages that can persist until the
predation risk has faded
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10394/30640https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.3422
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ece3.3422