TY  - JOUR
A1  - Bierbach, David
A1  - Schulte, Matthias
A1  - Herrmann, Nina
A1  - Zimmer, Claudia
A1  - Arias-Rodriguez, Lenin
A1  - Indy, Jeane Rimber
A1  - Riesch, Rüdiger
A1  - Plath, Martin
T1  - Predator avoidance in extremophile fish
T2  - Life : open access journal
N2  - Extreme habitats are often characterized by reduced predation pressures, thus representing refuges for the inhabiting species. The present study was designed to investigate predator avoidance of extremophile populations of Poecilia mexicana and P. sulphuraria that either live in hydrogen sulfide-rich (sulfidic) springs or cave habitats, both of which are known to have impoverished piscine predator regimes. Focal fishes that inhabited sulfidic springs showed slightly weaker avoidance reactions when presented with several naturally occurring predatory cichlids, but strongest differences to populations from non-sulfidic habitats were found in a decreased shoaling tendency with non-predatory swordtail (Xiphophorus hellerii) females. When comparing avoidance reactions between P. mexicana from a sulfidic cave (Cueva del Azufre) and the adjacent sulfidic surface creek (El Azufre), we found only slight differences in predator avoidance, but surface fish reacted much more strongly to the non-predatory cichlid Vieja bifasciata. Our third experiment was designed to disentangle learned from innate effects of predator recognition. We compared laboratory-reared (i.e., predator-naïve) and wild-caught (i.e., predator-experienced) individuals of P. mexicana from a non-sulfidic river and found no differences in their reaction towards the presented predators. Overall, our results indicate (1) that predator avoidance is still functional in extremophile Poecilia spp. and (2) that predator recognition and avoidance reactions have a strong genetic basis.
KW  - antipredator behavior
KW  - hydrogen sulfide
KW  - Poecilia
KW  - predator avoidance
KW  - predator recognition
Y1  - 2013
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/30007
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-300074
SN  - 2075-1729
N1  - Updated Version, uploaded 8 February 2013
N1  - © 2013 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
VL  - 3
IS  - 1
SP  - 161
EP  - 180
PB  - MDPI
CY  - Basel
ER  -