Temporal Constraints on the Potential Role of Fry Odors as Cues of Past Reproductive Success for Spawning Lake Trout
Date
2017-10
Authors
Buchinger, Tyler J.
Marsden, J. Ellen
Binder, Thomas R.
Huertas, Mar
Bussy, Ugo
Li, Ke
Hanson, James E.
Krueger, Charles C.
Li, Weiming
Johnson, Nicholas S.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Abstract
Deciding where to reproduce is a major challenge for most animals. Many select habitats based upon cues of successful reproduction by conspecifics, such as the presence of offspring from past reproductive events. For example, some fishes select spawning habitat following odors released by juveniles whose rearing habitat overlaps with spawning habitat. However, juveniles may emigrate before adults begin to search for spawning habitat; hence, the efficacy of juvenile cues could be constrained by degradation or dissipation rates. In lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush), odors deposited by the previous year's offspring have been hypothesized to guide adults to spawning reefs. However, in most extant populations, lake trout fry emigrate from spawning reefs during the spring and adults spawn during the fall. Therefore, we postulated that the role of fry odors in guiding habitat selection might be constrained by the time between fry emigration and adult spawning. Time course chemical, physiological, and behavioral assays indicated that the odors deposited by fry likely degrade or dissipate before adults select spawning habitats. Furthermore, fry feces did not attract wild lake trout to constructed spawning reefs in Lake Huron. Taken together, our results indicate fry odors are unlikely to act as cues for lake trout searching for spawning reefs in populations whose juveniles emigrate before the spawning season, and underscore the importance of environmental constraints on social cues.
Description
Keywords
conspecific cues, habitat selection, olfaction, Salvelinus namaycush, Biology
Citation
Buchinger, T. J., Marsden, J. E., Binder, T. R., Huertas, M., Bussy, U., Li, K., Hanson, J. E., Krueger, C. C., Weiming, L., & Johnson, N. S. (2017). Temporal constraints on the potential role of fry odors as cues of past reproductive success for spawning lake trout. Ecology and Evolution, 7(23), pp. 10196–10206.
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© 2017 The Authors.
Rights License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.