INVESTIGADORES
SCAIA Maria Florencia
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Fighting fish: how the reproductive stage and sex steroids can explain aggression
Autor/es:
SCAIA MARÍA FLORENCIA
Lugar:
Woods Hole
Reunión:
Simposio; 23rd Annual Frontiers In Reproduction (FIR) Symposium; 2022
Institución organizadora:
Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL)
Resumen:
Aggression has been historically studied in males competing for resources, and it has been linked to androgens as main regulators of this behavior. Despite the fact that females also perform aggressive displays in different species, female aggression is still understudied when compared to males. Moreover, even if in teleost fish intersexual aggression can be associated with pair-bonding and mate preference, little is known about the mechanisms underlying male attacks towards conspecific females. Cichlasoma dimerus is a monogamous South American cichlid fish, in which both male and female dominants are highly aggressive towards non-reproductive fish. The aim of the present work is to understand the relationship between sex steroids, reproductive stage and aggressive behavior in C. dimerus. Agonistic encounters were performed between two males, two pre-spawning females, and one male with one pre-spawning female. All behavioral interactions were recorded for one hour and aggressive and submissive displays were quantified in winners and losers. Morphometric variables and circulating levels of sex steroids (estradiol, testosterone and 11-ketotestosterone) were determined. Results suggest that males and females show similar motivation for aggression in intersexual and intrasexual (male-male and female-female) encounters. In most intersexual encounters, males showed higher aggression than females, resulting in male winners and female losers. In contrast, in intrasexual encounters multivariate analysis suggests that aggression does not differ in males and females. Interestingly, results show higher initial estradiol plasma levels in female winners than losers, suggesting that estrogens can predict aggression in this sex. We also performed PERMANOVA and principal components analysis to further explore how hormonal, reproductive and morphometric variables can explain variability and clustering of data. This integral analysis suggests that aggression and submission are not explained by individual morphometric characteristics, but rather by reproductive and hormonal variables (p