9 - Parental Care in Intertidal Fishes

Abstract

The chapter describes parental care in intertidal fishes by addressing two themes: if there is something unique about parental care in this group, and if intertidal fishes can help to understand the broader issues of parental care in fishes. Parental care is defined as any investment by the parent in an individual offspring that increases the offspring's chance of surviving at the cost of the parent's ability to invest in other offspring. In fishes, parental care can take a variety of forms, including guarding, nest building and maintenance, substrate cleaning, fanning, internal gestation, removal of dead eggs, oral brooding, retrieval of eggs or fry that stray from the nest or school, cleaning of eggs or fry, external egg carrying and splashing. Guarding is the predominant form of care, occurring in 95% of care-giving fishes. Uniparental care is most common (78% of families providing care have solitary male or solitary female care). Male care is more common than female parental care (61% of families showing care have male care).