Influência da infecção por patógenos na escolha química de parceiros em tilápia-do-Nilo

• Autor(a) principal: Rossi, Vanessa Stramantinoli [UNESP]
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UNESP
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/11449/132027; http://www.athena.biblioteca.unesp.br/exlibris/bd/cathedra/09-12-2015/000854715.pdf
• topic: Peixe; Tilápia-do-Nilo; Infecção; Acasalamento de animais; Quimica; Infection

In sexual selection, mate choice is based on the characteristics exhibited by individuals such as courtship displays, body size, coloration, bridal ornaments, quality territory and pheromones. In species in which the female is the sex that has higher energy expenditure in offspring care, it chooses the partner. Studies show that females prefer to mate with males that have a showy sexual display because they are healthier and more resistant to parasites. Males with some kind of disease exhibit unattractive display such as bleeding throughout the body, depigmentation and skin necrosis. Despite the vision to be an important means of information transfer for choice, chemical communication is also widely used to acquire information related to fitness and status of potential partners. This study tested whether females are able to perceive, through chemical cues, the presence of pathogens in males, choosing free pathogens mates. Thus, we transfer water from two aquariums containing isolated male fish to an aquarium of choice, containing a female. Prior to the experiments, one of males were inoculated with bacterium and the control male with saline solution (vehicle). Most females (81.25%) visited faster (p=0.007) the compartment with the odor of healthy males. However there was no difference in the time of total stay between compartments (p = 0.9348). We conclude that there is evidence that there are initial perception, but it does not hold for the choice