The serotonin blocker Ketanserin reduces coral reef fish Ctenochaetus striatus aggressive behaviour during between-species social interactions

Abstract

A multitude of species engages in social interactions not only with their conspecifics but also with other species. Such interspecific interactions can be either positive, like helping, or negative, like aggressive behaviour. However, the physiological mechanisms of these behaviours remain unclear. Here, we manipulated the serotonin system, a well-known neurohormone for regulating intraspecific aggressive behaviour, to investigate its role in interspecific aggression. We tested whether serotonin blockade affects the aggressive behaviour of a coral reef fish species (Ctenochaetus striatus) that engages in mutualistic interactions with another species, the cleaner fish (Labroides dimidiatus). Although this mutualistic cleaning relationship may appear positive, cleaner fish do not always cooperate and remove ectoparasites from the other coral reef fish (“clients”) but tend to cheat and bite the client’s protective layer of mucus. Client fish thus often apply control mechanisms, like chasing, to deter their cleaner fish partners from cheating. Our findings show that blocking serotonin receptors 5-HT2A and 5-HT2C with ketanserin reduced the client fish’s aggressive behaviour towards cleaner fish, but in the context where the latter did not cheat. These results are evidence of the involvement of serotonin in regulating aggressive behaviour at the between-species social interactions level. Yet, the direction of effect we found here is the opposite of previous findings using a similar experimental set-up and ecological context but with a different client fish species (Scolopsis bilineatus). Together, it suggests that serotonin’s role in aggressive behaviour is complex, and at least in this mutualistic ecological context, its function is species-dependent. This warrants, to some extent, careful interpretations from single-species studies looking into the physiological mechanisms of social behaviour.