Meeting Abstract

P3.129  Tuesday, Jan. 6  A test for the influence of offspring behavior on parental care in the convict cichlid (Archocentrus nigrofasciatus) ABDU, R.W.*; ABATE, M.E.; KAUFMAN, L.; Boston University, Massachusetts; Boston University, Massachusetts; Boston University, Massachusetts abduw@bu.edu

Heterospecific predators and kidnapping by conspecific alloparents threaten the survival of the fry of the convict cichlid (Archocentrus nigrofasciatus). Parents defend their young by attacking intruders and mouthing their fry to move them to the nest site. Both adults and fledglings get advance warning of the risk of predation when they are exposed to olfactory alarm cue released from the broken skin of conspecifics, and they respond by seeking refuge and with enhanced group cohesion. It is unknown to what extent the fry can influence the level of parental care behavior. We periodically removed fry from their home aquaria and exposed them briefly to either conspecific skin extract or distilled water, and after placing them in rinse containers, returned them to their parents. We measured parental care by recording the parents aggression toward threatening juvenile convicts in a glass container placed near the nest. We tested for fry homing behavior using a mini-flume that exposed the fry to separate plumes of home aquarium water and foreign tank water and recorded how much time the fry spent in each plume for three minutes. We compare the behavior of the parents in the two treatments and examine the relationship of parental aggression and homing behavior to evaluate the influence of offspring behavior on parental care.