Cats singing in the dark? Spawning aggregations of sound-producing fish in Amazonian floodplain forests
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Cats singing in the dark? Spawning aggregations of sound-producing fish in Amazonian floodplain forests Peter van der Sleen & Arnold Lugo-Carvajal & Jansen Zuanon & Milena Holmgren
Received: 15 July 2020 / Accepted: 9 August 2020 # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract The Amazon basin has a freshwater fish diversity comparable to a tropical sea. Although many Amazonian fish species are popular ornamental fish across the world, the ecology of most species in their natural habitat remains poorly known (van der Sleen and Albert 2017). We report on shoaling behavior in Platydoras hancockii in a floodplain forest of the middle Rio Negro, Brazil. As the shoal consisted of only adult males, whereas gravid females were caught individually in nearby areas, we hypothesize that this aggregation may relate to spawning. Moreover, considering that Platydoras hancockii is capable of producing sounds, it is possible that these aggregations entail the formation of a chorus-like call with the function of attracting females from a larger area. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-020-01019-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. P. van der Sleen (*) : A. Lugo-Carvajal : M. Holmgren Wildlife Ecology and Conservation Group, Wageningen University and Research Centre, Wageningen, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] P. van der Sleen Forest Ecology and Forest Management Group, Wageningen University and Research Centre, Wageningen, The Netherlands A. Lugo-Carvajal Programa de Pós-Graduação em Biologia de Água Doce e Pesca Interior, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA), Manaus, Brazil J. Zuanon Coordenação de Biodiversidade, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA), Manaus, Brazil
Keywords Spawning aggregation . Gender segregation . Chorus . Freshwater fish . Platydoras hancockii . Amazon basin
A predictable flood pulse in the Amazon basin inundates floodplain forests at vast spatial scales for several months each year, thereby creating crucial feeding and nursery grounds for Amazonian fish (e.g., Goulding 1980). How individuals of the same fish species find each other during this reproduction period and how mate selection takes place in these immense, shaded, and often murky waters remains largely unknown. During the high-water season, on May 16, 2019, we collected a shoal of 28 individuals of the raphael catfish Platydoras hancockii (Siluriformes: Doradidae) in a blackwater floodplain forest (Fig. 1a, b), about 5 km from the town of Barcelos in the Mariuá Archipelago, middle Rio Negro, Brazil (0.56°S, 62.55°W). The sampling was part of a larger research project on the effects of floodplain forest loss by fire on fish communities (Lugo-Carvajal et al. in prep.). The fish were caught within an unburned floodplain forest and were retrieved from the net at 11 am, but probably got entangled at night or crepuscular hours. All individuals were collected close together and within a few meters of a gillnet of 60 mm mes
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