Phenotypic determinants of survival: a field study

Abstract [Related Publication]: 1. Mortality through predation is often selective, particular at life-history bottlenecks. While many studies have looked at the importance for survival of specific prey characteristics in isolation, few have looked at a broad array of attributes and how they relate to survival in a realistic context.

2. Our study measures 18 morphological, performance and behavioural traits of a juvenile damselfish that have been hypothesized as important for prey survival, and examines how they relate to survival in the field immediately after settlement. These attributes included size, relative false eye-spot size, fast-start escape response kinematics, thigmotaxis, laterality, and space use and activity in the field.

3. Using conditional inference trees we identify the most important drivers out of a reduced suite of 13 characters on 111 complete replicate fish (Pomacentrus chrysurus). Fast-start response latency, boldness, feeding rates and two measures of activity were found to significantly contribute to survival. Morphological variables and most laboratory measures of performance appeared to contribute little to survival.

4. Results suggest selection works on a suite of characters associated with boldness. Bold and active fish are those that will be best able to learn using public information, but because of the relatively naïveté of newly metamorphosed fishes, speed to react to a strike from an unknown predator is of critical importance.

5. Findings substantiate the ecomorphological paradigm by suggesting that selection on behaviour modifies the correlations of morphological and performance variables with survival probabilities, since behaviour modifies performance capabilities by making them specific to context

 

The full methodology is available in the publication shown in the Related Publications link below.

    Data Record Details
    Data record related to this publication Phenotypic determinants of survival: a field study
    Data Publication title Phenotypic determinants of survival: a field study
  • Description

    Abstract [Related Publication]: 1. Mortality through predation is often selective, particular at life-history bottlenecks. While many studies have looked at the importance for survival of specific prey characteristics in isolation, few have looked at a broad array of attributes and how they relate to survival in a realistic context.

    2. Our study measures 18 morphological, performance and behavioural traits of a juvenile damselfish that have been hypothesized as important for prey survival, and examines how they relate to survival in the field immediately after settlement. These attributes included size, relative false eye-spot size, fast-start escape response kinematics, thigmotaxis, laterality, and space use and activity in the field.

    3. Using conditional inference trees we identify the most important drivers out of a reduced suite of 13 characters on 111 complete replicate fish (Pomacentrus chrysurus). Fast-start response latency, boldness, feeding rates and two measures of activity were found to significantly contribute to survival. Morphological variables and most laboratory measures of performance appeared to contribute little to survival.

    4. Results suggest selection works on a suite of characters associated with boldness. Bold and active fish are those that will be best able to learn using public information, but because of the relatively naïveté of newly metamorphosed fishes, speed to react to a strike from an unknown predator is of critical importance.

    5. Findings substantiate the ecomorphological paradigm by suggesting that selection on behaviour modifies the correlations of morphological and performance variables with survival probabilities, since behaviour modifies performance capabilities by making them specific to context

     

    The full methodology is available in the publication shown in the Related Publications link below.

  • Other Descriptors
    • Descriptor

      This dataset is available as a spreadsheet in MS Excel (.xlsx) and Open Document formats (.ods)

    • Descriptor type Note
  • Data type dataset
  • Keywords
    • predator-prey
    • morphology
    • performance
    • behaviour
    • survival
    • ecomorphological paradigm
    • coral reef fish
    • ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
  • Funding source
    • ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
  • Research grant(s)/Scheme name(s)
  • Research themes
    Tropical Ecosystems, Conservation and Climate Change
    FoR Codes (*)
    SEO Codes
    Specify spatial or temporal setting of the data
    Temporal (time) coverage
  • Start Date 2016/10/15
  • End Date 2016/11/30
  • Time Period
    Spatial (location) coverage
  • Locations
    • Lizard Island, Queensland, Australia
    Data Locations

    Type Location Notes
    Attachment Phenotypic_determinants_data.xlsx MS Excel (.xlsx) format
    Attachment Phenotypic_determinants_data.ods Open Document (.ods) format
    The Data Manager is: Mark McCormick
    College or Centre
    Access conditions Open: free access under license
  • Alternative access conditions
  • Data record size 120 fish
  • Related publications
      Name McCormick, Mark I., Fakan, Eric, and Allan, Bridie J. M. (2018) Behavioural measures determine survivorship within the hierarchy of whole-organism phenotypic traits. Functional Ecology, 32 (4). pp. 958-969
    • URL http://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.13033
    • Notes
  • Related websites
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    • URL
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  • Related metadata (including standards, codebooks, vocabularies, thesauri, ontologies)
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    • Notes
    Citation McCormick, Mark; Allan, Bridie (2017): Phenotypic determinants of survival: a field study. James Cook University. https://doi.org/10.4225/28/59c47d4b3a5f2