Team colours matter when playing away from home: aggression biases in geographically isolated mbuna cichlid populations

摘要: The rocky shore habitats of the African Great Lakes support high densities cichlid fishes, including many closely-related/ecologically similar species. Aggressive behaviours between conspecifics, and perhaps heterospecifics, influences this unusually level species coexistence. In dichotomous choice aggression trials, male Maylandia thapsinogen were presented simultaneously with two heterospecific intruders (Maylandia emmiltos zebra). M. significantly more aggressive towards from an allopatric (similar orange dorsal fin colour - emmiltos), than a different (blue Aggression biases disappeared when differences masked using monochromatic lighting. A second experiment compared female thapsinogen, similarly coloured to one another, former possessing yellow, as opposed black throat latter does. preferentially attacked females their own in full but not light, while showed no significant bias under any Responses affected by olfactory cues provided stimulus fish. These results indicate that divergence might facilitate co-existence some cases, all, which could be important should populations re-join through lake drops.