Reproductive allocation by Amazon fishes in relation to feeding strategy and hydrology

Abstract

Seasonal environments favor the evolution of capital breeding, whereby reproduction uses surplus energy from resources acquired during an earlier period. Consequently, reproductive effort in capital breeders is expected to depend on traits associated with energy storage rather than environmental conditions at the time of reproduction. Based on a 15-year dataset, we investigate the effect of phenotype (body size and condition) and environmental conditions (intensity of hydrological seasons, predator density, and density of conspecifics) on fecundity three capital breeding fish species from the strongly seasonal Amazon River floodplain: Psectrogaster rutiloides, Triportheus angulatus, and Acestrorhynchus falcirostris. Fecundity of all three species was strongly correlated with phenotype and modulated by unfavorable environmental conditions during the period of reproduction, especially high density of conspecifics. Fecundity was negatively affected by the density of conspecifics for small females of A. falcirostris, and for T. angulatus females with poor body condition. Fecundity of P. rutiloides declined during periods of drought when density of conspecifics was highest. A clear tradeoff between quantity and quality of oocytes was found only for P. rutiloides. This study highlights that reproductive allocation of capital breeders in seasonal environments is strongly linked to environmental conditions before and during the reproductive period. © 2018, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.