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borderboy

New Member
Messages
6
Hello I'm Pete from North Wales.
This is my "second coming" with regards to apistos. I first had a trio of a.hongsloi about 10 years ago. They were great and gave me my affection for apistos. So much so that I went on to write my university dissertation on a.agassizii. Due to circumstances my fish keeping then went on hold for 6 years and I've just purchased 1 male and 3 female a.cacatuoides. Really enjoying having apistos again but I feel like I'm starting all over. Hopefully I can pick up some hints and tips off you guys and share some too.

Pete
 

borderboy

New Member
Messages
6
Hi Darrel,
Sorry for my late reply. I was hoping to look at my Diss before writing to give you the abdtract but haven't had chance I'm afraid.
It on Mate choice and dominance in a.agassizii. As my uni didn't have any aquatic set ups available I had to use second hand tanks to hold the stock. These were equally divided with opaque perspex so each fish had its own compartment. These each then had a basic sponge filter and a cave made from 2 small clay pots sealed together. Males were kept in the same conditions in a separate tank.
I then had a 3 compartment experimental tank which had the same set up in each. The fish were rotated through 2 different experiments.
With one section blanked off females were introduced to a section each and their interactions recorded, then the same for males. The second was with a female in each end and a male in the middle. I used behavioural indicators as well as changes in markings to give scores to rank the females and males along with mate choices.
On the whole the males, as you would expect, chose females who were a higher rank and different males largely agreed on which females they preferred. However there were occasions where a male would chose a much lower ranking female.

Hope this gives you a good idea of the work.
 

Chongkie

New Member
Messages
7
Hi Borderboy,

It is a interesting topic for your thesis. Would really love to read the full thing.

Did you only experiment with Agassizii?

How did you find out which female the male chose? Was it more that the male was more inclined to either the left female or right.?

I stand to be corrected, but wouldn't it much more natural to have eg. 1 male in a single tank with 4 females, then you see who he pairs up with? Then take out male again, then add another male to see.

Anyways looking forward to reading the full thesis.
 

borderboy

New Member
Messages
6
Hi, chongkie.
Yes it was only with agassizii.
For the mate choice experiment I used a marking system that involved not only visits to either side but also behaviours such as displays and any changes in markings.
As for your points about multiple females in one tank that is something I brought up in my discussion. It throws up more questions about territory that would also have to be taken into account. Does the most dominant female have the largest territory? Is quality of female territory more important than size? i.e access to more resources? Do all the females find all the males equally attractive?

This was more about direct individual mate choice against the dominance rank of individuals of the opposite sex. So if female A is dominant over female B and C you would expect the male to choose her over either of them. Same goes for B, if she is dominant over C you would expect the male to choose B. However what if the male chose female A over C but chose C over B? Is that his choice or has female B rejected him?

I'll try and dig out some of the results this weekend to post.
 

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