Cost of morphological specialization: feeding performance of the two morphs in the trophically polymorphic cichlid fish, Cichlasoma citrinellum

Cost of morphological specialization: feeding performance of the two morphs in the trophically polymorphic cichlid fish, <Emphasis Type="Italic">Cichlasoma citrinellum</Emphasis>

The feeding performance on soft and hard prey of two morphs of the trophically polymorphic Neotropical cichlid fish, Cichlasoma citrinellum, was investigated in the laboratory. The molariform morphs, specialized to feed on hard prey, are able to crack snail shells that are twice as hard as those cracked by the papilliform morphs. During ecological bottlenecks in food resources this ability shou...

Feeding specialization in Herichthys minckleyi: a trophically polymorphic fish

*School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, U.S.A., ‡Department of Biological Sciences and Merriam Powell Center for Environmental Research, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona 86011, U.S.A., §Section of Integrative Biology and Texas Memorial Museum, University of Texas, Texas Natural History Collections, Austin, Texas, 78758, U.S.A., {University of ...

Competition Between Color Morphs of the Midas Cichlid, Cichlasoma citrinellum, in Lake Jiloá, Nicaragua

Competition between Color Morphs of the Polychromatic Midas Cichlid Cichlasoma citrinellum.

The Midas cichlid, Cichlasoma citrinellum, is a polychromatic fish that occurs in Nicaragua. All of these fish start life as normally colored, cryptic individuals. In some populations a few fish change into conspicuously colored morphs, most frequently gold. When kept in unmixed color groups, golds and normals grow at the same rate; but when they are mixed, growth of the golds becomes faster an...

Sexual dimorphism in a trophically polymorphic cichlid fish?

Sexual dimorphism in ecologically relevant traits is ubiquitous in animals. However, other types of intraspecific phenotypic divergence, such as trophic polymorphism, are less common. Because linkage to sex should often lead to balancing selection, understanding the association between sex and phenotypic divergence could help explain why particular species show high morphological variability. T...