Meeting Abstract
Across vertebrates chemical communication is used to convey reproductive state and social status to conspecifics. Females are often senders of potent chemical cues that can elicit physiological and behavioral responses in male receivers. In fishes, these female-released compounds can be passively emitted through the skin and gills, or actively released through the urine. It was previously shown that males of the highly social African cichlid, Astatotilapia burtoni, alter urination behaviors depending on social context, but whether females have evolved a similar chemosensory signaling mechanism is unknown. Here we tested the hypothesis that gravid (reproductively receptive) females actively change urination rate and behavior depending on social context. Using an innocuous dye to visualize urine pulses, we exposed dye-injected gravid females to four different conditions: dominant male, gravid female, brooding (non-receptive) female, and control empty compartment, and then quantified urination and social behaviors. We found that gravid females do alter urination rates in a context-dependent manner. Further, the number of aggressive behaviors performed by dye-injected gravid females differed when exposed to females of different reproductive states. These results suggest A. burtoni females have a similar chemosensory signaling mechanism to that of males, conveying reproductive status or body condition to males as well as to other females. This study supports the hypothesis that female A. burtoni use urine pulses as contextual chemosensory signals for both intra- and inter-sexual communication. Coupled with previous research, these data provide insights on how chemosensory signaling may have helped shape the evolution of social communication during reproduction in cichlid fishes.
