Lack of strategic service provisioning by Pederson's cleaner shrimp (Ancylomenes pedersoni) highlights independent evolution of cleaning behaviors between ocean basins.

ABSTRACT: Marine cleaning interactions have been useful model systems for exploring evolutionary game theory and explaining the stability of mutualism. In the Indo-Pacific, cleaner organisms will occasionally "cheat" and remove live tissue, clients use partner control mechanisms to maintain cleaner honesty, and cleaners strategically increase service quality for predatory clients that can "punish" more severely. The extent to which reef communities in the Caribbean have evolved similar strategies for maintaining the stability of these symbioses is less clear. Here we study the strategic service provisioning in Pederson's cleaner shrimp (Ancylomenes pedersoni) on Caribbean coral reefs. In the Gulf of Honduras, we use video observations to analyze >1000 cleaning interactions and record >850 incidents

SUBMITTER: Titus BM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6345747 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature