Abstract
Many “client” coral reef fishes have their ectoparasites removed by the “cleaner” wrasse Labroides dimidiatus in mutualistic interactions. Clients regularly receiving cleaning services reportedly benefit from increased growth and cognitive performance, but the underlying physiological changes that covary with such benefits are unknown. Here, we tested whether reduced access to cleaning services affects physiological state in two species of damselfish, Amblyglyphidodon curacao and Acanthochromis polyacanthus. We performed an in situ removal experiment on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia, whereby 47% of cleaners on a natural reef were removed. Since cleaners occupy defined territories (called “cleaning stations”), this removal created areas where small, resident clients, including A. polyacanthus and A. amblyglyphidodon, had no access to cleaning services. One month following cleaner removal, we measured body condition and collected blood samples from both damselfish species from territories with and without access to cleaners. Blood was used for estimating haematocrit levels, hormonal analyses, and immune cell counts. We tested for correlations among all these parameters to explore potential trade-offs in terms of growth, aerobic capacity, immune activation, and/or reproduction as a result of the loss of cleaning benefits. In both species, we found that fish without access to cleaners had lower haematocrit, testosterone levels, and lymphocyte counts than fish with access. There were no significant changes in fish body condition, leukocytes, granulocytes, or plasma cortisol levels between fish with access to cleaners or not. However, testosterone levels correlated negatively with the proportion of granulocytes in the blood of fish with access to cleaners. Our results suggest that even a relatively short-term reduction in access to cleaning services can have negative physiological outcomes for clients. Thus, the presence of cleaners on coral reefs appears to have important benefits for coral reef fish community health.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the staff of LIRS for their support and friendship; Dr Albert Ros for help with the blood smear analyses; Radu Slobodeanu for help with the statistical analyses; and Jennifer McClung for commenting on an earlier version of the manuscript. SAB is funded through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Canada Research Chair program. This project was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant number 31003A_153067/1 to R.B.).
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RB, ZT and CD conceived the study. ZT, CD, DGR and SAB finalized data collection design. CD and ZT collected the data with assistance from DGR and SAB. GG performed the HPLC-MS analyses. ZT ran statistical analyses and generated the figures. ZT and CD wrote the first draft of the manuscript, and ZT incorporated comments from all co-authors.
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Demairé, C., Triki, Z., Binning, S.A. et al. Reduced access to cleaner fish negatively impacts the physiological state of two resident reef fishes. Mar Biol 167, 48 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-020-3658-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-020-3658-2