Kleptoparasitism and aggressiveness are influenced by standard metabolic rate in eels
2016
Geffroy, Benjamin | Bolliet, Valérie | Bardonnet, Agnes | Ecologie Comportementale et Biologie des Populations de Poissons (ECOBIOP) ; Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour (UPPA) | Benjamin Geffroy is supported by a CAPES-Ciência Sem Fronteiras, grant A045_2013. The project was supported by funding from the Office National de l'Eau et des Milieux Aquatiques (ONEMA) and by the Interreg IV B Atlantic area transnational program (European Regional Development Fund), in the context of the Arc Atlantic Resource Conservation (AARC) program
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Show more [+] Less [-]English. Kleptoparasitism refers to either interspecific or intraspecific stealing of food already procured by other species or individuals. Within a given species, individuals might differ in their propensity to use such a tactic, in a similar manner to which they differ in their general level of aggressiveness. Standard metabolic rate is often viewed as a proxy for energy requirements. For this reason, it should directly impact on both kleptoparasitism and aggressiveness when individuals have to share the samefood source. In the present studywe first assessed the standard metabolic rate (SMR) of 128 juvenile European eels (Anguilla anguilla) by the determination of oxygen consumption. We then tested how the SMR could influence agonistic behavior of individuals competing for food in three distinct trials evenly distributed over three months.We demonstrate that SMR positively correlates with attacks (sumof bite and push events) in all trials. Similarly SMR correlated positively with kleptoparasitism(food theft), but this was significant only for the third trial (month 3). To our knowledge, the present study is the first reporting a link between kleptoparasitism and SMR in a fish species. This has ecological implications owing to the fact that this species is characterized by an environmental sex determination linked to early growth rate. We discuss theses findings in the light of the producer-scrounger foraging game.
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