Sex-specific prioritization of parental roles by the convict cichlid is differentially affected by brood predator threat

Abstract

Abstract Parents are faced with multiple, critical tasks, and must prioritize mutually exclusive activities. With biparental care, decisions on prioritization become more complex, as sexes may differ in their prioritization of conflicting behaviours and compensation for changes in their mates’ behaviour. Here, I examined the decisions of biparental convict cichlids when they were forced to retrieve displaced young and defend against an intruder. The size and proximity of the potential predator was varied to determine how threat-level influenced prioritization decisions. Males tended to be consistent in their contributions to offspring, regardless of the threat to young. Female parents, however, were much more variable in their care and adjusted their aggression with the size of the intruder and adjusted retrieval in relation to the proximity of the offspring. Sex differences in parental contributions may be due to differences in the parents’ ability or willingness to adjust roles and/or differential potential future reproduction.