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Cichlids respond to conspecific sounds but females exhibit no phonotaxis without the presence of live males
Author(s) -
Estramil Natalia,
Bouton Niels,
Verzijden Machteld N.,
Hofker Kees,
Riebel Katharina,
Slabbekoorn Hans
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
ecology of freshwater fish
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.667
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1600-0633
pISSN - 0906-6691
DOI - 10.1111/eff.12081
Subject(s) - courtship , biology , fish <actinopterygii> , olfactory cues , attraction , communication , sound (geography) , zoology , ecology , courtship display , mating , olfaction , psychology , fishery , acoustics , philosophy , physics , linguistics
Abstract Many fish species are able to produce sounds, which are often associated with courtship. In an earlier study, we showed for the L ake V ictoria cichlid P undamilia nyererei that females prefer to associate with a male with sound over a male without sound. As a follow‐up to this earlier finding, we here investigated whether playback of conspecific sounds is sufficient to attract females in the absence of a conspecific male. However, we did not find a phonotactic response for conspecific sounds in the absence of live males, using the same playback procedure as in our previous study. An additional playback test showed that both males and females discriminated between conspecific sounds and bursts of white noise. This suggests that the sounds may be recognised but that they seem only effective as attractant in the presence of visual and/or olfactory cues. These findings underline the multimodal complexity of fish communication and courtship and call for a more integrated study of the different modalities in future studies.