Subordinate Space Use as a Method of Regulating Conflict Over Helping Behavior in a Cooperatively-Breeding Fish
Loading...
Date
2025-05
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The Ohio State University
Abstract
The African cichlid fish Neolamprologus pulcher are cooperative breeders. Dominant and subordinate members of the group cooperate over care of offspring but also face conflict over status and reproduction. The pay-to-stay hypothesis is one of the main theories that attempts to explain this cooperative behavior; it suggests that subordinate fish performing helping tasks as a way to earn their spot in the group and are punished by the dominants in different ways if they fail to do so. This experiment aimed to determine whether dominant fish impose a punishment for lack of help by controlling the location of subordinates in the tank. I predicted that dominants would exclude subordinates from the nest as punishment after they were prevented from performing a helping task. The experiment consisted of three trials: an acclimation trial with no alterations to the tank and two treatment trials in which subordinates were either blocked from performing a helping task of cleaning grave from the nest or allowed to swim freely in all areas of the tank. After 24 hours, the barriers were removed, and the fish were recorded and observed. The time spent in the four quadrants directly surrounding the nest was recorded. After analyzing the results, I did not find a significant effect of treatment on time spent away from the shelter. However, a preliminary subsampling test revealed that there is some evidence that this outcome could be the result of a small sample size and future research should replicate the experiment with more subjects. This study adds insight into the dynamics of cooperative breeding groups and contributes to the overall understanding of the pay-to-stay hypothesis and indicates that there is a possibility that exclusion from the nest is a method of punishment used by dominant fish.
Description
Keywords
pay-to-stay, cooperative breeders