Three-spined sticklebacks adapt nests based on oxygen levels

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Three-spined sticklebacks adapt nests based on oxygen levels

January 01, 2017 - 08:14
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A recent study by the University of Leicester has shown that the three-spined sticklebacks have the ability to adapt their nest construction based on the oxygen level of the water.

Three-spined sticklebacks.

For this fish species, it is the males that care for the eggs. They are also responsible for constructing the nest that attracts the females to mate with them.

It has been found that if the oxygen level of the water is low, they will build nests that are looser. If the oxygen level is high, the nests are more compact.

"This makes sense, because male sticklebacks have to work really hard as dads, using their fins to fan water through the nest to supply the eggs with the oxygen they need to develop," said lead researcher Dr Iain Barber, a biologist from University of Leicester.

"If the water is low in oxygen, then having a looser, more open nest allows more oxygen to reach the eggs, but it probably comes at the expense of increasing the risk of them being discovered by predators," he added.

Perhaps for the same reason, during the courtship, the females choose males that had designed their nests based on the oxygen level. So, those males that constructed looser nests in low-oxygen environments, or tight ones in high-oxygen environments would have a higher chance of mating.

Dr Megan Head, who conducted the experiments in Leicester but now works at Australian National University, said, "What is really cool about this result is that females seem to have flexible preferences for the type of nest they preferred - they did not always choose a particular nest design, but they chose the nest that was best designed for the particular conditions they were experiencing at the time."

The three-spined stickleback's highly adaptive nature gives them an advantage in the face of climate change. Many other species stick to their inherent beheaviour due to their evolutionary history, causing them to make choices that are no longer beneficial under new climatic environments.

In contrast, the sticklebacks are able to adapt their behaviour depending on the current environmental conditions, allowing them to better cope should their living conditions deteriorate.

Co-author Dr Rebecca Fox, a marine biologist at the University of Technology Sydney said, "Originally, sticklebacks were found only in the sea, but they have successfully colonised freshwaters around the world. The sticklebacks that we see in our lakes and rivers now are the descendants of fish that successfully made the transition from marine to freshwater, which presumably required them to be good at adapting to new conditions. This inbuilt behavioural 'plasticity' might also explain why sticklebacks do relatively well in degraded conditions."