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Parental Responses to Changes in Costs and Benefits Along an Environmental Gradient

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Abstract

We evaluated the effects of dissolved oxygen on offspring survival, parental costs, and the pattern of parental care in Florida flagfish, Jordanella floridae (Cyprinodontidae). Specifically, we quantified (1) embryonic development and survival in the absence of parental care, (2) behavior of non-reproductive adults, and (3) behavior of parental males across a gradient in dissolved oxygen. Embryo developmental rates and survivorship increased with dissolved oxygen, with a relatively sharp increase in survival between medium and high oxygen treatments. Non-reproductive adults increased their frequency of aquatic surface respiration, reduced overall activity, and increased opercular beat rate as oxygen declined, suggesting increased costs of activity with reduced oxygen. Taking these cost measures together, costs appear to increase slowly as oxygen starts to decline and then increase sharply as conditions approach hypoxia. In contrast, parental effort increased gradually with dissolved oxygen. We conclude that the increase in care from low to medium oxygen primarily results from a sharp decline in physiological costs, whereas the continued increase in care from medium to high oxygen primarily results from an increase in offspring value. In addition, our results highlight that the benefits of fanning for offspring are not well understood and that they may increase with oxygen, contrary to what has been previously assumed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Zoology, University of Florida, 223 Bartram Hall, Gainesville, FL, 32611-8525, U.S.A.

    Rebecca E. Hale & Colette M. St. Mary

  2. Department of Ecology and Systematics, Biocenter 3 (Viikinkaari 1), University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 65, 00014, Finland

    Kai Lindström

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  1. Rebecca E. Hale
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  2. Colette M. St. Mary
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  3. Kai Lindström
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Hale, R.E., St. Mary, C.M. & Lindström, K. Parental Responses to Changes in Costs and Benefits Along an Environmental Gradient. Environmental Biology of Fishes 67, 107–116 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025676315344

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