- An elaborate system exists in the ocean in which some fish present themselves to be cleaned at designated ‘cleaning stations’ visited by cleaner fish.
- For an evolutionary biologist, competition is expected whereas cooperation is a paradox, whether in animals, humans or even plants or microbes.
- Competition is easier to explain based on the theory of evolution by natural selection. But cooperation, and especially altruism, requires special explanations.
- And it is the need for special explanations that make cooperation and altruism most interesting, and attracts so many of us to take on this challenge posed by nature.
One of the more lovable phenomena we see in animals is the cooperation between different species, especially when one partner is big and strong and the other is small and weak. A familiar example is the association between two species, where one species cleans the other by removing the ectoparasites of the other. Both parties benefit-cleaners can eat something, cleaners can remove annoying parasites. You may have seen birds riding on mammals’ backs and pecking at their bodies, even in their ears and close to their eyes.
A more complex cleaning symbiosis system can be seen in the ocean, and some fish appear to be cleaned at the designated cleaning station visited by the cleaning fish. These connections between cleaners and their clients are not random, opportunistic encounters, but highly evolved and predictable between professional species that know how to clean best and professional cleaning species that know how to clean best Repeated reciprocal interaction.
There is increasing evidence that cleaning is good for customers. If the cleaner is removed from the cleaning station, the customer will accumulate a large number of parasites. The most common ectoparasites carried by customers are isopods, a type of louse that parasitizes marine animals. There is also good evidence that cleaners do clean-the analysis of their intestinal behavior and intestinal contents confirms this.
As we will see below, this evolving relationship between cleaners and their customers is a good balance between cooperation and conflict.
The bluestreak cleaning fish (Labroides dimidiatus) can clean a variety of customers and is one of the most studied cleaning fish. Much of our understanding of the ecology and evolution of this reciprocal association today comes from years of research by Redouan Bshary, professor of ecology and behavior at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, and his students and colleagues.
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