Authors: Veronika Bartáková Martin Reichard
Publish Date: 2017/01/10
Volume: 794, Issue: 1, Pages: 153-166
Abstract
The presence of nonnative species can affect coevolved relationships However rapid reciprocal changes in coevolutionary associations provide the potential to quickly respond to a new situation We studied a system where bitterling fish Rhodeus amarus parasitize unionid mussels by laying their eggs onto their gills This association is affected by the infestation of unionid shells by the nonnative zebra mussel Dreissena polymorpha In a series of experiments under experimental seminatural and natural conditions we compared the behavioural response to zebra mussel infestation of unionid shells its effect on oviposition decisions and their population consequences between bitterling populations naïve to zebra mussels and those recently sympatric with zebra mussels We found no effect of recent sympatry on bitterling preoviposition behaviour and oviposition decisions and only a weak effect on their reproductive success Bitterling from both populations inspected infested and noninfested mussels at the same rate but preferred to oviposit into noninfested unionid hosts However neither bitterling population completely avoided oviposition into infested unionids and three ovipositions into zebra mussels were observed Overall there was a clear negative relationship between the number of zebra mussels on unionid host shells and the number of juvenile bitterling emerging from the mussels Our study demonstrated a lack of rapid evolutionary response to adaptively modulate oviposition choice after recent zebra mussel invasionThis research was supported by Czech Science Foundation 1305872S MR conceived the study VB performed the experimental work MR analysed data VB and MR wrote the paper The authors thank Matej Polačik for comments on the manuscript and Rowena Spence for comments and English corrections
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