Differential learning by native versus invasive predators to avoid distasteful cleaning mutualists

1. Cleaning symbioses on coral reefs are mutually beneficial interactions between two individuals, in which a ‘cleaner’ removes and eats parasites from the surface of a ‘client’ fish. A suite of behavioural and morphological traits of cleaners signal cooperation with co-evolved species, thus protecting the cleaner from being eaten by otherwise predatory clients. However, it is unclear whether cooperation between cleaners and predatory clients is innate or learned, and therefore whether an introduced predator might consume, cooperate with, or alter the behaviour of cleaners.
2. We explored the role of learning in cleaning symbioses by comparing the interactions of native cleaner fishes with both naïve and experienced, non-native and native fish predators. In so doing, we tested the vulnerability of the predominant cleaners on Atlantic coral reefs, cleaning gobies (Elacatinus spp.), to the recent introduction of a generalist predator, the Indo-Pacific red lionfish (Pterois volitans).
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