© 1995 International Society for Behavioral Ecology
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Dynamics of female choice for parental care in a fish species where care is facultative
1Department of Biological Sciences, University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA 2Station des Recherches, Sous-Marines et, Oceanographiques, (STARESO) BP 33, 20260 Calvi (Haute-Corse), France 3Appalachian Environmental Laboratory, University of Maryland Frostburg, MD 21532, USA
ABSTRACT
In the peacock wrasse (Symphodus tinca), females either place their eggs in a nest under the care of a male or disperse their eggs widely so that they receive no protection. The same female can spawn in both modes. Females appear to prefer males with nests early in the nesting cycle, and they spawn less often than expected in late-cycle nests and with non-nesting males. Survival and hatching success are consistently higher for eggs placed in early nests, particularly in mid-season when egg predation is intense and hatching times are relatively long. Nevertheless, 30%-80% of females place their eggs outside nests, even when hatching success is more than four times greater with care. A model incorporating search time for nests correctly predicted the qualitative changes in the tendency of females to choose care or no care over the course of the mating season. Extensions of the model suggest that in the early part of the season, when nests are rare and the relative survival advantage of parental care is small, females should sample no more than one nest before opting for no care. In mid-season, when the advantages of care are highest and between-nest travel times are low, females are estimated to visit at least 8 nests before abandoning the effort, corresponding to a giving-up time of about 43 min of search. Later in the season, when short hatching times reduce the relative benefit of care, females are estimated to visit between 4 and 5 nests before giving up, corresponding to about 31 min of search. We suggest that the variability in parental care in this species arises from seasonal changes in relative costs and benefits of care for the two sexes.
Key words: female choice, Labridae, Mediterranean, parental care, search costs, Symphodus tinca. [Behau Ecol 6: 73–81 (1995)].
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