Journal
BIOLOGY LETTERS
Volume 4, Issue 5, Pages 497-499Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2008.0244
Keywords
phenotypic polymorphism; scale-eating cichlid; Perissodus microlepis; Lake Tanganyika
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Funding
- Grants-in-Aid for Young Scientists [18779002, 20770065]
- Scientific Research on Priority Areas [40112552]
- Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research [18779002, 20770065] Funding Source: KAKEN
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Morphological dimorphism in the mouth-opening direction ('lefty' versus 'righty') has been documented in several fish species. It has been suggested that this deflection is heritable in a Mendelian one-locus, two-allele fashion. Several population models have demonstrated that lateral dimorphism is maintained by negative frequency-dependent selection, resulting from interactions between predator and prey species. However, other mechanisms for the maintenance of lateral dimorphism have not yet been tested. Here, we found that the scale-eating cichlid fish Perissodus microlepis exhibited disassortative mating, in which reproductive pairings between lefties and righties occurred at higher than expected frequency (p< 0.001). A previous study reported that a lefty -righty pairing produces a 1 : 1 ratio of lefty : righty young, suggesting that disassortative mating contributes to the maintenance of lateral dimorphism. A combination of disassortative mating and negative frequency-dependent selection may stabilize lateral dimorphism more than would a single mechanism.
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