Cleaning interactions, in which a small ‘cleaner’ organism removes and often consumes material from a larger ‘client’, are some of the most enigmatic and intriguing of interspecies interactions. Early research on cleaning interactions canonized the view that they are mutualistic, with clients benefiting from parasite removal and cleaners benefiting from a meal, but subsequent decades of research have revealed that the dynamics of these interactions can be highly complex. Despite decades of research on marine cleaning interactions (the best studied cleaning systems), key questions remain, including how the outcome of an individual cleaning interaction depends on ecological, behavioural, and social context, how such interactions arise, and how they remain stable over time. Recently, studies of marine parasites, long-term data from coral reef communities with and without cleaners, increased behavioural observations recorded using remote video, and a focus on a larger numbers of cleaning species have helped bring about key conceptual advances in our understanding of cleaning interactions. In particular, evidence now suggests that the ecological, behavioural, and social contexts of a given cleaning interaction can result in the outcome ranging from mutualistic to parasitic, and that cleaning interactions are mediated by signals that can also vary with context. Signals are an important means by which animals extract information about one another, and thus represent a mechanism by which interspecific partners can determine when, how, and with whom to interact. Here, I review our understanding of the behavioural ecology of marine cleaning interactions. In particular, I argue that signals provide a useful framework for advancing our understanding of several important outstanding questions. I discuss the costs and benefits of cleaning interactions, review how cleaners and clients recognize and assess one another using signals, and discuss how signal reliability, or ‘honesty’, may be maintained in cleaning systems. Lastly, I discuss the sensory ecology of both cleaners and clients to highlight what marine cleaning systems can tell us about signalling behaviour, signal form, and signal evolution in a system where signals are aimed at multiple receiver species. Overall, I argue that future research on cleaning interactions has much to gain by continuing to shift the research focus toward examining the variable outcomes of cleaning interactions in relation to the broader behavioural, social, and ecological contexts.

中文翻译：

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海洋清洁共生的行为生态学

清洁相互作用，其中一个小的“更清洁”有机体去除并经常消耗较大“客户”的材料，是种间相互作用中最神秘和最有趣的一些。对清洁相互作用的早期研究认为它们是互惠互利的，客户从寄生虫清除中受益，清洁工从一顿饭中受益，但随后数十年的研究表明，这些相互作用的动态可能非常复杂。尽管对海洋清洁相互作用（研究得最好的清洁系统）进行了数十年的研究，但关键问题仍然存在，包括个体清洁相互作用的结果如何取决于生态、行为和社会背景，这种相互作用是如何产生的，以及它们如何保持稳定时间。最近，对海洋寄生虫的研究，来自有和没有清洁工的珊瑚礁社区的长期数据、使用远程视频记录的更多行为观察以及对更多清洁物种的关注，有助于我们在理解清洁相互作用方面取得关键的概念进步。特别是，现在有证据表明，给定清洁互动的生态、行为和社会背景可以导致从互惠到寄生的结果，并且清洁互动由也可能随环境变化的信号介导。信号是动物提取彼此信息的重要手段，因此代表了一种机制，通过该机制，种间伙伴可以确定何时、如何以及与谁互动。在这里，我回顾了我们对海洋清洁相互作用的行为生态学的理解。特别是，我认为信号为促进我们对几个重要的悬而未决问题的理解提供了一个有用的框架。我讨论了清洁互动的成本和收益，回顾了清洁工和客户如何使用信号识别和评估彼此，并讨论如何在清洁系统中保持信号可靠性或“诚实”。最后，我讨论了清洁工和客户的感官生态学，以强调海洋清洁系统可以告诉我们关于信号针对多个接收器物种的系统中的信号行为、信号形式和信号演变。总的来说，我认为未来关于清洁互动的研究可以通过继续将研究重点转向检查清洁互动的可变结果与更广泛的行为、社会、