Abstract
Recent studies on cleaning behaviour suggest that there are conflicts between cleaners and their clients over what cleaners eat. The diet of cleaners usually contains ectoparasites and some client tissue. It is unclear, however, whether cleaners prefer client tissue over ectoparasites or whether they include client tissue in their diet only when searching for parasites alone is not profitable. To distinguish between these two hypotheses, we trained cleaner fish Labroides dimidiatus to feed from plates and offered them client mucus from the parrotfish Chlorurus sordidus, parasitic monogenean flatworms, parasitic gnathiid isopods and boiled flour glue as a control. We found that cleaners ate more mucus and monogeneans than gnathiids, with gnathiids eaten slightly more often than the control substance. Because gnathiids are the most abundant ectoparasites, our results suggest a potential for conflict between cleaners and clients over what the cleaner should eat, and support studies emphasizing the importance of partner control in keeping cleaning interactions mutualistic.
Full Text
The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (76.9 KB).
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- Axelrod R., Hamilton W. D. The evolution of cooperation. Science. 1981 Mar 27;211(4489):1390–1396. doi: 10.1126/science.7466396. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Ernst I., Whittington I. D. Hatching rhythms in the the capsalid monogeneans Benedenia lutjani from the skin and B. rohdei from the gills of Lutjanus carponotatus at Heron Island, Queensland, Australia. Int J Parasitol. 1996 Nov;26(11):1191–1204. doi: 10.1016/s0020-7519(96)00118-x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Grutter A. S. Cleaning symbioses from the parasites' perspective. Parasitology. 2002;124 (Suppl):S65–S81. doi: 10.1017/s0031182002001488. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Grutter Alexandra S., Murphy Jan Maree, Choat J. Howard. Cleaner fish drives local fish diversity on coral reefs. Curr Biol. 2003 Jan 8;13(1):64–67. doi: 10.1016/s0960-9822(02)01393-3. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Lester David, Tartaro Christine. Suicide on death row. J Forensic Sci. 2002 Sep;47(5):1108–1111. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Whittington I. D. Diversity "down under": monogeneans in the Antipodes (Australia) with a prediction of monogenean biodiversity worldwide. Int J Parasitol. 1998 Oct;28(10):1481–1493. doi: 10.1016/s0020-7519(98)00064-2. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]