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Cleaning behaviour of adult Bluestreak cleaner wrasse, Labroides dimidiatus

(Perciformes: Labridae), in Oceanário de Lisboa

Conference Paper  in  Frontiers in Marine Science · July 2018

DOI: 10.3389/conf.FMARS.2018.06.00043

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Oceanario de Lisboa
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 International Meeting on Marine Research - Peniche, 5 - 6 July 2018

Cleaning behaviour of adult Bluestreak cleaner wrasse

Labroides dimidiatus (Perciformes: Labridae) in
Oceanário de Lisboa
Catarina Freixial1*, Nuno Vasco Rodrigues2, Núria Baylina2, Teresa Modesto1
1Universidade do Algarve. Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Campus de Gambelas, 8005-139 Faro.
2Oceanário de Lisboa. Esplanada Dom Carlos I, 1990-005 Lisboa.

*Corresponding author: cat95@hotmail.com

INTRODUCTION
• Cleaning symbiosis can be a very important behaviour in marine species and is considered a form of mutualism. It is defined as
the removal of unwanted particles or parasites from the ‘client’s’ body by the cleaner.
• In this study, the ‘cleaner’ is the Bluestreak wrasse Labroides dimidiatus (Fig. 1), a species from the Indo-Pacific region. The
presence of this species in aquariums intends to keep a low parasite load, thus reducing potential stress in.
• The aim of this study was to gain an understanding on L. dimidiatus’ cleaning behaviour at Oceanário de Lisboa´s main tank.
The study attempted to investigate the specific preferences of L. dimidiatus’ ‘client’ species, and preferred body area for
cleaning as well as the most frequently observed tank zone for interactions.
Figure 1. Bluestreak cleaner wrasse, Labroides dimidiatus.

METHODOLOGY
• Observations were performed during 27 non-consecutive c
b
days, 1 hour/day, 5 minutes/window, at Oceanário de
Lisboa´s central tank.
• This tank has 12 viewing windows: 4 “panoramic” (Fig. 2-
A, B, C, D) and 8 “small” windows (Fig. 2 – A1, A2, B1, B2, a
C1, C2, D1, D2), and is divided into four different zones, 1

each of them representing one ocean: Atlantic, Antarctic c

(here referred as South), Pacific and Indian (Fig. 2). Each
b
zone’s theming replicates the typical habitat of the
respective ocean.
• An “Interaction” was defined each time L. dimidiatus a
made contact with the client with its mouth.
• Four different areas were hereby identified for the client’s 2
body: ‘head’, ‘gills’, ‘body’ and ‘caudal area’ (Fig. 3).
a
Figure 2. Layout of the central tank: Figure 3. Two examples of the identified areas of the
Atlantic- A, A1, A2; South- B, B1, B2; Pacific- C, C1, C2; Indian- D, D1, D2. client’s body: a- caudal area; b- head; c- gills; non-circled
area was considered as “body”.

RESULTS
600
495
Number of interactions

500
393
400
315 327
300
215 224 225
200
131 128 142
120 111
98
100 51 52 70 63 55 64 50
32 46 26 29 27
12 14 24 4 10 6 5 7 14
2
0

Figure 4. Number of interactions between Labroides dimidiatus and other species present in the central tank. Families are listed according to Nelson et al. (2016) and species follow alphabetical order.

1400 3000
1221
1200 2490
2500
1000 960
Number of interactions

Number of interactions

2000
800 753
653 1500
600

1000
400

500 406 446

200
245

0 0
Atlantic South Pacific Indian Head Gills Body Caudal area

Figure 5. Number of interactions per tank zone. Figure 6. Number of interactions per client’s body area.

DISCUSSION
• Considering that L. dimidiatus is a species from the Indo-Pacific region, it was unexpected to see that the highest number of interactions was with Lutjanus griseus, an
Atlantic species, tough followed by Diagramma pictum (11%), a Indo-West Pacific species. The results show a similar behaviour with many other species that are not
present in the natural geographic distribution area of L. dimidiatus, which is intriguing.
• However, the highest number of interactions (34%) occurred in the Indian zone of the tank, which may be related to the fact that there is a higher number of individuals of
this species in this zone, as a result of the existing coral reef theming, its typical habitat.
• This cleaner showed preference for the client’s body area defined as ”body”, where most of the interactions occurred (69%).
• Further studies may help to better understand the importance of these kind of interactions between different species in aquaria.

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