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This content will become publicly available on August 22, 2025

Title: Facial and body colouration is linked to social rank in the African cichlid Astatotilapia burtoni
Animal colouration is fundamentally important for social communication within conspecifics to advertising threat to competitors or fitness to possible mates. Social status and animal colouration are covarying traits that are plastic in response to dynamic environments. In the African cichlid,Astatotilapia burtoni, body colouration and behaviour have been extensively reported to vary with social rank. However, the nature of the interaction between these two traits is poorly understood. We hypothesise that pigmentation patterns could be linked to the behavioural repertoires underlying social status and can be resolved to regions on the cichlid body plan. To test this hypothesis, we generated Territorial (T) and Non-territorial (NT) males and employed computer vision tools to quantify and visualise patterns/colour enrichment associated with stereotyped T/NT male behaviour. We report colour-behaviour interactions localised in specific areas of the body and face for two colour morphs illustrating a more nuanced view of social behaviour and pigmentation. Since behavioural and morphological variation are key drivers of selection in the East African Great Rift Lakes, we surmise our data may be translatable to other cichlid lineages and underline the importance of trait covariance in sexual selection and male competition.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1921773
PAR ID:
10568657
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ;
Corporate Creator(s):
Editor(s):
TBD
Publisher / Repository:
bioRxiv
Date Published:
Edition / Version:
1
Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
Animal coloration, plasticity, behavior, social behavior, A. burtoni
Format(s):
Medium: X Size: 1.35MB Other: pdf
Size(s):
1.35MB
Institution:
bioRxiv
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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