Biological Market examples
cleaning mutualisms
Redouan Bshary in his previous life as a primatologist
Cleaner fish – client interactions are good examples of mutualistic interactions between members of different species in which different commodities are traded: the cleaner removes ecto-parasites and the client brings food to the cleane. The supply and demand of both commodities varies over time.
Redouan Bshary concentrated on partner choice as the crucial factor driving markets. He compared interactions of cleaners with 'residents', i.e. clients that had access to only a single cleaning station and 'floaters', i.e. clients that could choose between multiple cleaning stations.
As predicted the floaters were serviced faster and better than the residents.
Thomas Adam (2010) also showed that clients with choice options receive better service than those that don't by studying the interactions of cleaners with a single client species, the ornate butterfly fish.
Zegni Triki and colleagues (2022) experimentally reduced the number of cleaners on one isolated reef. The results were unexpected, but certainly provided more insight in how cleaner markets work.
Other well-studied cleaning mutualisms with cleaning gobies (Soares et al). and cleaner shrimp (Becker et al.) , show both similar and contrasting results.
'Floaters' (or 'visitors') are client fish that range widely and have access to multiple cleaning stations. 'Residents' have small territories and access to only a single 'cleaning station'. Floaters can exert partner choice and play off multiple cleaners against each other, while residents have no choice. As a result, cleaners serve floaters better than residents and residents have to wait when a floater visits the cleaning station.
Key references
Adam, T. C. 2010. Competition encourages cooperation: client fish receive higher-quality service when cleaner fish compete. Animal Behaviour, in press.(see also editorial by Searcy, W. A. 2010. Customer service in cleaner fish)
Becker, J. H. A., Curtis, L. M. & Grutter, A. S. 2005. Cleaner shrimp use a rocking dance to advertise cleaning service to clients. Current Biology, 15, 760-764.
Becker, J. H. A. & Grutter, A. S. 2005. Client fish ectoparasite loads and cleaner shrimp Urocaridella sp. c hunger levels affect cleaning behaviour. Animal Behaviour, 70, 991-996.
Bshary, R. (2021). Cooperation and conflict in mutualisms with a special emphasis on marine cleaning interactions. In W. Wilczynski & S. Brosnan (Eds.), Cooperation and conflict: the interaction of opposites in shaping social behavior (pp. 185): Cambridge University Press.
Bshary R (2001) The cleaner fish market. In In: Noë, R.; van Hooff, J.A.R.A.M. & Hammerstein, P. (eds.) Economics in Nature. Social Dilemmas, Mate Choice and Biological Markets. Cambridge Univ. Press. pp. 146-172
Bshary R, Grutter AS (2002) Experimental evidence that partner choice is a driving force in the payoff distribution among cooperators or mutualists: the cleaner fish case. Ecology Letters 51: 130-136
Bshary, R. & Noë, R. 2023. A marine cleaning mutualism provides new insights in biological market dynamics. Philosophical Transactions B. (DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2021.0501) pdf
Bshary R, Schäffer D (2002) Choosy reef fish select cleaner fish that provide high-quality service. Animal Behaviour 63: 557-564
Bshary R, Noë R (2003) Biological Markets: the ubiquitous influence of partner choice on the dynamics of cleaner fish-client reef fish interactions. In Genetic and Cultural Evolution of Cooperation., Hammerstein P (ed), pp 167-184.: MIT Press. Cambridge, Mass.
Côté, I. M. & Soares, M. C. (2011). Gobies as cleaners. In R. A. Patzner, J. L. V. Tassell, M. Kovacic & B. G. Kapoor (Eds.), The Biology of gobies: Science Publishers Inc.
Dunkley, K., Whittey, K. E., Ellison, A. & Perkins, S. E. (2023). The presence of territorial damselfish predicts choosy client species richness at cleaning stations. Behavioral Ecology https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arac122
Dunkley, K., Cable, J. & Perkins, S. E. (2020). Consistency in mutualism relies on local, rather than wider community biodiversity. Scientific Reports, 10(1), 21255
Gingins, S. & Bshary, R. (2015). Pairs of cleaner fish prolong interaction duration with client reef fish by increasing service quality. Behavioral Ecology, 26(2), 350-358
Mills, S. C. & Côté, I. M. 2010. Crime and punishment in a roaming cleanerfish. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 277, 3617-3622.
Roche, D. G., Jornod, M., Douet, V., Grutter, A. S. & Bshary, R. (2021). Client fish traits underlying variation in service quality in a marine cleaning mutualism. Animal Behaviour, 175, 137-151 (open access)
Soares, M. C., Bshary, R., Cardoso, S. C. & Cote, I. M. 2008. Does competition for clients increase service quality in cleaning gobies? Ethology, 114, 625-632.
Soares, M. C., Coté, I. M., Cardoso, S. C. & Bshary, R. 2008. The cleaning goby mutualism: a system without punishment, partner switching or tactile stimulation. Journal of Zoology, 276, 306-312.
Soares, M. C., Côté, I. M., Cardoso, S. C., Oliveira, R. F. & Bshary, R. 2010. Caribbean cleaning gobies prefer client ectoparasites over mucus. Ethology, 116, 1244-1248.
Soares, M. C., Cardoso, S. C., Nicolet, K. J., Côté, I. M. & Bshary, R. (2013). Indo-Pacific parrotfish exert partner choice in interactions with cleanerfish but Caribbean parrotfish do not. Animal Behaviour, 86, 611-615
Triki, Z., Richter, X. y. L., Pinto, A., Baud, A., Binning, S. A., Aellen, M., . . . Bshary, R. (2023). The interplay between satiation and temptation drives cleaner fish Labroides dimidiatus foraging behaviour and service quality towards client reef fish. EcoEvoRxiv.
Triki, Z., Richter, X.-Y. L., Demairé, C., Kurokawa, S. & Bshary, R. (2022). Marine cleaning mutualism defies standard logic of supply and demand. The American Naturalist 1999 (4), 455-467
Triki, Z., Wismer, S., Rey, O., Ann Binning, S., Levorato, E. & Bshary, R. (2019). Biological market effects predict cleaner fish strategic sophistication. Behavioral Ecology, 30(6), 1548–1557
Truskanov, N., Emery, Y., Porta, S. & Bshary, R. (2021). Configural learning by cleaner fish in a complex biological market task. Animal Behaviour, 181, 51-60
Wismer, S., Pinto, A. I., Triki, Z., Grutter, A. S., Roche, D. G. & Bshary, R. (2019). Cue-based decision rules of cleaner fish in a biological market task. Animal Behaviour, 158, 249-260
last update 4 DEC 2023