Maternal food provisioning in a substrate-brooding African cichlid.
Kazutaka Ota1, Masanori Kohda1
1Department of Biology and Geosciences, Osaka City University, Sumiyoshi, Osaka, Japan.
Plos One
|June 10, 2014
Summary
Parental African cichlid fish, Neolamprologus mondabu, dig to uncover food for their young. This maternal behavior provides essential nutrition for offspring, even at the parent
Area of Science:
- Ethology
- Ichthyology
- Behavioral Ecology
Background:
- Fish exhibit diverse parental care strategies, with food provisioning being rare.
- Exceptions include substrate-brooding Central American cichlids and mouth-brooding African cichlids.
- Neolamprologus mondabu is a maternal substrate-brooding cichlid from Lake Tanganyika.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate food provisioning behavior in the African cichlid Neolamprologus mondabu.
- To determine if maternal digging behavior serves to provision food for offspring.
- To compare parental and non-parental foraging and offspring feeding behaviors.
Main Methods:
- Observational studies of Neolamprologus mondabu feeding and parental care.
- Quantification of adult female feeding bouts related to digging.
- Experimental simulation of maternal digging to assess offspring feeding response.
Main Results:
- Maternal digging accounted for 30% of adult female feeding bouts.
- Parental females fed less frequently after digging compared to non-parental females.
- Offspring feeding frequency doubled after simulated maternal digging, indicating food provisioning.
Conclusions:
- Neolamprologus mondabu mothers provision food for their young by digging.
- This digging behavior uncovers food inaccessible to young, demonstrating parental sacrifice.
- This represents the first evidence of food provisioning via digging in a substrate-brooding African cichlid.
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