Bigger and bossier better for fish families
December 15th, 2009 - 2:22 pm ICT by ANIWashington, Dec 15 (ANI): When it comes to fish families, the bigger and bossier the better, a new study has found.
Among cichlids, a species that lives in groups, members make strategic decisions about their living situation, researchers from McMaster University and the University of New South Wales found.
In the study, the helper class of cichlids showed a preference for joining groups of familiar individuals, some likely to be family members.
However, when given the choice between unfamiliar social groups the helpers chose groups where the members were bigger and bossier.
At the starting of the experiment, which was conducted in Zambia’s Lake Tanganyika, researchers expected that individual cichlids would base their group-living arrangements on whether they could improve their social rank and thereby expedite their attainment of breeding status.
However, when faced with a choice between unfamiliar groups they chose the group that did not enhance their rank but that contained larger group members.
Marian Wong, a post-doctoral fellow in McMaster’s Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, and co-author of the study, said: “It seems that cichlids potentially prefer groups of dominant members for reasons of survival due to the increased protection from predation when larger group members are around.”
The study appears in the current issue of Biology Letters. (ANI)
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