Intrasexual competition among females and the stabilization of a conspicuous colour polymorphism in a Lake Victoria cichlid fish

Dijkstra, Peter; Seehausen, Ole; Groothuis, Ton (2007). Intrasexual competition among females and the stabilization of a conspicuous colour polymorphism in a Lake Victoria cichlid fish. Proceedings of the Royal Society. Series B - biological sciences, 275(1634), pp. 519-526. London: Royal Society of London 10.1098/rspb.2007.1441

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The maintenance of colour polymorphisms within populations has been a long-standing interest in evolutionary ecology. African cichlid fish contain some of the most striking known cases of this phenomenon. Intrasexual selection can be negative frequency dependent when males bias aggression towards phenotypically similar rivals, stabilizing male colour polymorphisms. We propose that where females are territorial and competitive, aggression biases in females may also promote coexistence of female morphs. We studied a polymorphic population of the cichlid fish Neochromis omnicaeruleus from Lake Victoria, in which three distinct female colour morphs coexist: one plain brown and two blotched morphs. Using simulated intruder choice tests in the laboratory, we show that wild-caught females of each morph bias aggression towards females of their own morph, suggesting that females of all three morphs may have an advantage when their morph is locally the least abundant. This mechanism may contribute to the establishment and stabilization of colour polymorphisms. Next, by crossing the morphs, we generated sisters belonging to different colour morphs. We find no sign of aggression bias in these sisters, making pleiotropy unlikely to explain the association between colour and aggression bias in wild fish, which is maintained in the face of gene flow. We conclude that female-female aggression may be one important force for stabilizing colour polymorphism in cichlid fish.

Item Type:	Journal Article (Original Article)
Division/Institute:	08 Faculty of Science > Department of Biology > Institute of Ecology and Evolution (IEE) > Aquatic Ecology
UniBE Contributor:	Seehausen, Ole
ISSN:	0962-8452
Publisher:	Royal Society of London
Language:	English
Submitter:	Factscience Import
Date Deposited:	04 Oct 2013 14:58
Last Modified:	05 Dec 2022 14:17
Publisher DOI:	10.1098/rspb.2007.1441
PubMed ID:	18077255
Web of Science ID:	000252764800006
URI:	https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/24755 (FactScience: 52901)