Mirza Reehan S, Chivers Douglas P
Department of Biology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada.
J Chem Ecol. 2002 Mar;28(3):555-64. doi: 10.1023/a:1014544112763.
A wide diversity of aquatic organisms release chemical alarm cues when captured by a predator. For most animals, it is not known whether the specific chemicals that comprise the alarm cue are conserved as prey animals age. In this study, we tested whether brook char (Salvelinus fontinalis) can differentiate alarm cues produced by individuals of different ages/sizes. In separate laboratory experiments we exposed small brook char and large brook char to chemical alarm cues from small brook char, large brook char, and a control of swordtails (Xiphophorus helleri). Both small and large brook char responded with antipredator behavior to chemical alarm cues from both small and large char, but not to those from swordtails. Small char responded with a greater response intensity to cues of small char than to cues of large char. In contrast, large char responded with a greater response intensity to cues of large char than to cues of small char. These results suggest that chemical(s) that act as the alarm cue for fish of different age/size classes may be: (1) identical and that there may be other chemical(s) that allow the test fish to distinguish between cues from fish of different ages/sizes, or (2) the cues are not identical, but similar enough to be recognized.
多种多样的水生生物在被捕食者捕获时会释放化学警报信号。对于大多数动物而言，尚不清楚构成警报信号的特定化学物质是否会随着猎物年龄的增长而保持不变。在本研究中，我们测试了溪红点鲑（Salvelinus fontinalis）是否能够区分不同年龄/大小个体产生的警报信号。在单独的实验室实验中，我们将小溪红点鲑和大溪红点鲑暴露于来自小溪红点鲑、大溪红点鲑的化学警报信号以及剑尾鱼（Xiphophorus helleri）的对照信号中。小溪红点鲑和大溪红点鲑对来自小和大溪红点鲑的化学警报信号均表现出反捕食行为，但对来自剑尾鱼的信号无此反应。小溪红点鲑对小溪红点鲑的信号反应强度大于对大溪红点鲑的信号。相反，大溪红点鲑对大溪红点鲑的信号反应强度大于对小溪红点鲑的信号。这些结果表明，作为不同年龄/大小类别的鱼类警报信号的化学物质可能是：（1）相同的，并且可能存在其他化学物质使受试鱼类能够区分来自不同年龄/大小鱼类的信号，或者（2）信号不相同，但相似到足以被识别。
