A novel system to understand ...

A novel system to understand brood parasitism: the cuckoo catfish parasiting African cichlids (2018-2020)

Investigator: doc. RNDr. Martin Reichard, Ph.D.
Number of Project: 18-00682S
Agency: Czech Science Foundation
Duration: 01. 01. 2018 - 31. 12. 2020

Brood parasitism has evolved multiple times in birds and social insect but is remarkably rare in other taxa. An exception is the cuckoo catfish that exploit mouthbrooding cichlid fishes. Foster cichlid mother incubates catfish eggs, with a major cost to her brood through predation by early hatching cuckoo catfish offspring. Surprisingly, over 30 years after its discovery in natural conditions, there are no experimental data on this coevolutionary relationship. This proposal suggests a series of laboratory experiments with captive cuckoo catfish and several species of their potential hosts, taking parasite-centred and host-centred perspectives. Using natural and artificial parasitism of host broods, we will describe parasite adaptations, quantify the cost of parasitism to host cichlids and test host counter-adaptation using sympatric hosts, sympatric non-hosts and evolutionarily naïve hosts. Using genetic data, we will test existence of specialized host races in the wild. The project stems from our long-term experience with the study system and numerous pilot studies.