Data from "Reputation management promotes strategic adjustment of service quality in cleaner wrasse"

Adjusting one’s behaviour in response to eavesdropping
bystanders is considered a sophisticated social strategy, yet the underlying mechanisms are not
well studied. We provide evidence that cleaner wrasse, Labroides dimidiatus strategically adjust their levels of
cooperation depending on the social environment of their habitat rather than as
a physiological response to energetic needs. Cleaners can cooperate by eating
ectoparasites off of “client” reef fishes, or can cheat and eat client mucus. Image
scoring by bystander clients generally causes cleaners from socially complex
habitats to increase levels of cooperation. However, stressed individuals may
selectively provide tactile stimulation to small resident clients, which
attracts bystanders close that are bitten, a form of tactical deception. We
exogenously administered cortisol to mimic physiological stress and observed
subsequent cleaning interactions of cleaners from socially complex and socially
simple habitats. Crucially, the latter show no evidence of adjustment to
bystanders when in normal state, and baseline cortisol levels were similar
between habitats. Correspondingly, only energetically-stressed cleaners from
socially-complex habitats increased service quality to small residents, the
basis for tactical deception. It thus appears that strategic adjustments to
cooperative behavior and tactical deception are context-dependent, forming part
of general reputation management abilities in cleaner wrasse.