From Armament to Ornament: Performance Trade-Offs in the Sexual Weaponry of Neotropical Electric Fishes
Posted on: 13 February 2018 , updated on: 19 February 2018
Preprint posted on 11 January 2018
Some electric fishes fence with long jaws for mates! They sacrifice bite force for a longer jaw, which makes a better weapon.
Selected by Cassandra Donatelli
Categories: animal behavior and cognition, ecology, evolutionary biology, physiology
Background: Most of the work on electric fishes has focused on their namesake: the ability to produce electricity. There have been countless studies on their electric organs, communication using electricity, and the role of electricity in navigation and prey capture. However, these fish are more than just their electric organs. They also engage in complex behaviors unrelated to electricity. One such behavior is battling over mates using weapons built in to their faces.
Kory Evans and colleagues discuss the potential consequences of having weaponry used in male contests over mates. They use two species of electric fishes, Apteronotus rostratus and Compsaraia samueli, with elongated jaws as their study system; they are sexually dimorphic, and the elongation of the jaw varies between individuals.
What they did: The researchers took micro-CT scans and created 3D computer models of each individual. They then quantified skull variation using three-dimensional geometric morphometrics. This technique uses anatomical landmarks placed on the 3D models to analyze differences in shape between subsets of a group. Finally, they calculated mechanical advantage of the jaw. Mechanical advantage is an estimate of the force produced by different systems. In this case, the researchers used the relationship between the length of the adductor mandubulae muscle (closes the jaw), and the length of the jaw itself as a proxy for bite force [1].
The discovery: In C. samueli males, the researchers found that fish with longer jaws have a lower mechanical advantage (MA in Fig. 1 below). The relationship is opposite in females, though the variation in jaw length is much lower than in males. In contrast, there was no difference in mechanical advantage between males and females in A. rostraus, and no effect of jaw length on mechanical advantage. The authors conclude that this trade-off between mechanical advantage and jaw length is due to sexual selection. In C. camueli, it may be more important for the fish to have a longer jaw for mating contests than it is for them to produce large amounts of bite force.
Reproduced from Evans et al., Figure 2B
Open questions and possible future studies: It would be interesting to take the study further by measuring the kinematics of the fish during a contest. 3D printed physical models based on the CT scans could also be tested to provide more concrete evidence of mechanical advantage.
[1] Westneat, M.W. 2003 A biomechanical model for analysis of muscle force, power output and lower jaw motion in fishes. Journal of Theoretical Biology 223, 269-281.
Read preprint
(No Ratings Yet)Sign up to customise the site to your preferences and to receive alerts
Register hereAlso in the animal behavior and cognition category:
A depth map of visual space in the primary visual cortex
Wing Gee Shum, Phoebe Reynolds
Neural Basis of Number Sense in Larval Zebrafish
Muhammed Sinan Malik
Pharyngeal neuronal mechanisms governing sour taste perception in Drosophila melanogaster
Matthew Davies
Also in the ecology category:
Green synthesized silver nanoparticles from Moringa: Potential for preventative treatment of SARS-CoV-2 contaminated water
Safieh Shah, Benjamin Dominik Maier
Precision Farming in Aquaculture: Use of a non-invasive, AI-powered real-time automated behavioural monitoring approach to predict gill health and improve welfare in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) aquaculture farms
Jasmine Talevi
Gestational exposure to high heat-humidity conditions impairs mouse embryonic development
Girish Kale, preLights peer support
Also in the evolutionary biology category:
Enhancer-driven cell type comparison reveals similarities between the mammalian and bird pallium
Rodrigo Senovilla-Ganzo
Modular control of time and space during vertebrate axis segmentation
AND
Natural genetic variation quantitatively regulates heart rate and dimension
Girish Kale, Jennifer Ann Black
Fetal brain response to maternal inflammation requires microglia
Manuel Lessi
Also in the physiology category:
Precision Farming in Aquaculture: Use of a non-invasive, AI-powered real-time automated behavioural monitoring approach to predict gill health and improve welfare in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) aquaculture farms
Jasmine Talevi
Gestational exposure to high heat-humidity conditions impairs mouse embryonic development
Girish Kale, preLights peer support
Modular control of time and space during vertebrate axis segmentation
AND
Natural genetic variation quantitatively regulates heart rate and dimension
Girish Kale, Jennifer Ann Black
preLists in the animal behavior and cognition category:
9th International Symposium on the Biology of Vertebrate Sex Determination
This preList contains preprints discussed during the 9th International Symposium on the Biology of Vertebrate Sex Determination. This conference was held in Kona, Hawaii from April 17th to 21st 2023.
| List by | Martin Estermann |
Bats
A list of preprints dealing with the ecology, evolution and behavior of bats
| List by | Baheerathan Murugavel |
FENS 2020
A collection of preprints presented during the virtual meeting of the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS) in 2020
| List by | Ana Dorrego-Rivas |
Also in the ecology category:
preLights peer support – preprints of interest
This is a preprint repository to organise the preprints and preLights covered through the 'preLights peer support' initiative.
| List by | preLights peer support |
EMBO | EMBL Symposium: The organism and its environment
This preList contains preprints discussed during the 'EMBO | EMBL Symposium: The organism and its environment', organised at EMBL Heidelberg, Germany (May 2023).
| List by | Girish Kale |
Bats
A list of preprints dealing with the ecology, evolution and behavior of bats
| List by | Baheerathan Murugavel |
Also in the evolutionary biology category:
‘In preprints’ from Development 2022-2023
A list of the preprints featured in Development's 'In preprints' articles between 2022-2023
| List by | Alex Eve, Katherine Brown |
preLights peer support – preprints of interest
This is a preprint repository to organise the preprints and preLights covered through the 'preLights peer support' initiative.
| List by | preLights peer support |
EMBO | EMBL Symposium: The organism and its environment
This preList contains preprints discussed during the 'EMBO | EMBL Symposium: The organism and its environment', organised at EMBL Heidelberg, Germany (May 2023).
| List by | Girish Kale |
9th International Symposium on the Biology of Vertebrate Sex Determination
This preList contains preprints discussed during the 9th International Symposium on the Biology of Vertebrate Sex Determination. This conference was held in Kona, Hawaii from April 17th to 21st 2023.
| List by | Martin Estermann |
EMBL Synthetic Morphogenesis: From Gene Circuits to Tissue Architecture (2021)
A list of preprints mentioned at the #EESmorphoG virtual meeting in 2021.
| List by | Alex Eve |
Planar Cell Polarity – PCP
This preList contains preprints about the latest findings on Planar Cell Polarity (PCP) in various model organisms at the molecular, cellular and tissue levels.
| List by | Ana Dorrego-Rivas |
TAGC 2020
Preprints recently presented at the virtual Allied Genetics Conference, April 22-26, 2020. #TAGC20
| List by | Maiko Kitaoka et al. |
ECFG15 – Fungal biology
Preprints presented at 15th European Conference on Fungal Genetics 17-20 February 2020 Rome
| List by | Hiral Shah |
COVID-19 / SARS-CoV-2 preprints
List of important preprints dealing with the ongoing coronavirus outbreak. See http://covidpreprints.com for additional resources and timeline, and https://connect.biorxiv.org/relate/content/181 for full list of bioRxiv and medRxiv preprints on this topic
| List by | Dey Lab, Zhang-He Goh |
1
SDB 78th Annual Meeting 2019
A curation of the preprints presented at the SDB meeting in Boston, July 26-30 2019. The preList will be updated throughout the duration of the meeting.
| List by | Alex Eve |
Pattern formation during development
The aim of this preList is to integrate results about the mechanisms that govern patterning during development, from genes implicated in the processes to theoritical models of pattern formation in nature.
| List by | Alexa Sadier |
Also in the physiology category:
Fibroblasts
The advances in fibroblast biology preList explores the recent discoveries and preprints of the fibroblast world. Get ready to immerse yourself with this list created for fibroblasts aficionados and lovers, and beyond. Here, my goal is to include preprints of fibroblast biology, heterogeneity, fate, extracellular matrix, behavior, topography, single-cell atlases, spatial transcriptomics, and their matrix!
| List by | Osvaldo Contreras |
FENS 2020
A collection of preprints presented during the virtual meeting of the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS) in 2020
| List by | Ana Dorrego-Rivas |
TAGC 2020
Preprints recently presented at the virtual Allied Genetics Conference, April 22-26, 2020. #TAGC20
| List by | Maiko Kitaoka et al. |
Autophagy
Preprints on autophagy and lysosomal degradation and its role in neurodegeneration and disease. Includes molecular mechanisms, upstream signalling and regulation as well as studies on pharmaceutical interventions to upregulate the process.
| List by | Sandra Malmgren Hill |
Cellular metabolism
A curated list of preprints related to cellular metabolism at Biorxiv by Pablo Ranea Robles from the Prelights community. Special interest on lipid metabolism, peroxisomes and mitochondria.
| List by | Pablo Ranea Robles |