The impact of wave disturbance on the nesting behaviour of the sand goby, Pomatoschistus minutus
Jakaus, Victoria (2021)
Jakaus, Victoria
2021
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2021042011011
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2021042011011
Tiivistelmä
Nesting behaviour is a form of parental care; nests are often used to ensure the survival of eggs and offspring and to protect them from environmental threats. Sand goby, Pomatoschistus minutus, males build nests under any suitable substrate, such as the shell of a bivalve or a stone, in a soft-bottom littoral area. Nest building is dependent on many factors including the cost to parents. I studied the impact of wave disturbance on the nesting behaviour of male sand gobies using wave tanks to simulate different wave velocities. Treatment tanks were set to velocities between 8 cm/s and 18 cm/s whilst control tanks had no wave action. A male was placed in each tank for 23 hours with a choice of a smaller 6 cm x 6 cm tile or a larger 10 cm x 10 cm tile as nesting sites. Whether a nest was built as well as the choice of nest site was recorded. Although binomial generalised linear models showed no effect of wave velocity on the nesting behaviour, males showed more tendency to build a nest in treatment tanks with lower wave velocities but also more tendency to choose to build a nest at a larger tile in higher velocities. I postulate that it could be more beneficial for a male to build a nest at larger site in higher wave disturbances and, therefore, only males that are capable of building a larger nest will build any nest as a smaller nest is not beneficial enough. Wave disturbances may have a larger effect on nest building at higher velocities, but more research is needed.