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Research Article
The impact of long-term reduced access to cleaner fish on health indicators of resident client fish
Albert F. H. Ros, David Nusbaumer, Zegni Triki, Alexandra S. Grutter, Redouan Bshary
Journal of Experimental Biology 2020 223: jeb231613 doi: 10.1242/jeb.231613 Published 29 December 2020
Albert F. H. Ros
1Department of Biology, University of Neuchâtel, Emile-Argand, 11, 2000 Neuchâtel, Switzerland
2Fishery Research Unit, LAZBW, Argenweg 50/1, 88085 Langenargen, Germany
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  • ORCID record for Albert F. H. Ros
David Nusbaumer
1Department of Biology, University of Neuchâtel, Emile-Argand, 11, 2000 Neuchâtel, Switzerland
3Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
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Zegni Triki
1Department of Biology, University of Neuchâtel, Emile-Argand, 11, 2000 Neuchâtel, Switzerland
4Department of Zoology, Stockholm University, Svante Arrheniusväg 18 B, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
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Alexandra S. Grutter
5School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia
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Redouan Bshary
1Department of Biology, University of Neuchâtel, Emile-Argand, 11, 2000 Neuchâtel, Switzerland
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  • For correspondence: afhros@gmail.com
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ABSTRACT

In many mutualisms, benefits in the form of food are exchanged for services such as transport or protection. In the marine cleaning mutualism, a variety of ‘client’ reef fishes offer ‘cleaner’ fish Labroides dimidiatus access to food in the form of their ectoparasites, where parasite removal supposedly protects the clients. Yet, the health benefits individual clients obtain in the long term from repeated ectoparasite removal remain relatively unknown. Here, we tested whether long-term reduced access to cleaning services alters indicators of health status such as body condition, immunity and the steroids cortisol and testosterone in four client damselfish species Pomacentrus amboinensis, Amblyglyphidodon curacao, Acanthochromis polyacanthus and Dischistodus perspicillatus. To do so, we took advantage of a long-term experimental project in which several small reefs around Lizard Island (Great Barrier Reef, Australia) have been maintained cleaner-free since the year 2000, while control reefs had their cleaner presence continuously monitored. We found that the four damselfish species from reef sites without cleaners for 13 years had lower body condition than fish from reefs with cleaners. However, immunity measurements and cortisol and testosterone levels did not differ between experimental groups. Our findings suggest that clients use the energetic benefits derived from long-term access to cleaning services to selectively increase body condition, rather than altering hormonal or immune system functions.

Footnotes

  • Competing interests

    The authors declare no competing or financial interests.

  • Author contributions

    Conceptualization: A.F.H.R., A.S.G., R.B.; Methodology: A.F.H.R., A.S.G., R.B.; Validation: A.F.H.R.; Formal analysis: A.F.H.R., D.N., Z.T., R.B.; Investigation: A.F.H.R., D.N., R.B.; Resources: R.B.; Data curation: A.F.H.R., D.N.; Writing - original draft: A.F.H.R.; Writing - review & editing: A.F.H.R., D.N., Z.T., A.S.G., R.B.; Visualization: A.F.H.R., D.N., Z.T.; Supervision: R.B.; Project administration: A.S.G., R.B.; Funding acquisition: A.S.G., R.B.

  • Funding

    This study was supported by the Australian Research Council (DP120102415 to A.S.G. and R.B.), the Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung (31003AB_135707 and 31003A_153067 to R.B.), and the Swiss Government excellence scholarship (2012.2014 to Z.T.).

  • Data availability

    The detailed script generated in R for the current analysis along with the associated data are available from the figshare digital repository: https://figshare.com/s/e9c75c69e88980a46d85.

  • Supplementary information

    Supplementary information available online at https://jeb.biologists.org/lookup/doi/10.1242/jeb.231613.supplemental

  • Received June 22, 2020.
  • Accepted November 9, 2020.
  • © 2020. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd
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Keywords

  • Cleaning mutualism
  • Immunocompetence
  • Condition
  • Cortisol
  • Testosterone
  • Reef fish

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Research Article
The impact of long-term reduced access to cleaner fish on health indicators of resident client fish
Albert F. H. Ros, David Nusbaumer, Zegni Triki, Alexandra S. Grutter, Redouan Bshary
Journal of Experimental Biology 2020 223: jeb231613 doi: 10.1242/jeb.231613 Published 29 December 2020
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Research Article
The impact of long-term reduced access to cleaner fish on health indicators of resident client fish
Albert F. H. Ros, David Nusbaumer, Zegni Triki, Alexandra S. Grutter, Redouan Bshary
Journal of Experimental Biology 2020 223: jeb231613 doi: 10.1242/jeb.231613 Published 29 December 2020

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