Honesty and Carotenoids in a Pigmented Female Fish

DEDICATION To my mom, Christine E. Brown, and my dad, James W. Brown. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thanks to my committee members, especially my advisor, Ethan D. Clotfelter, for challenging me, straightening me out when I erred, and supporting my work. Thank you for all the times you had to tell me something you knew I wouldn't like, because you helped me improve. Thank you to Sistema Nacional de Areas de Conservacion (SINAC) for permission to perform the field portion of this study. Also, thank you to Manrique Montes and the staff at Lomas Barbudal for logistical assistance. name a few. I might have been able to do this without you, but it would have been awful. Thank you to all the current and past members of the Clotfelter laboratory, especially the undergraduate students. The carotenoid tradeoff hypothesis states that diet-derived carotenoids are traded-off among competing physiological demands, but this statement is rarely tested in ornamented females. The following dissertation tests the carotenoid tradeoff hypothesis in reverse sexually dimorphic convict cichlids (Amantitlania siquia) using carotenoid-supplemented diet treatments and a field-based study of carotenoid intake. Spectral, microscopic, and chemical analysis determined how females allocated the pigments to tissues and how those decisions affected their ventral patch coloration. The results presented in the current study show that carotenoids enhance offspring growth and survival, lower oxidative stress, and reduce the time to clear a parasite. The two final chapters suggest that carotenoid limitation and absorption may not explain carotenoid allocation dynamics in A. siquia. The final chapter proposes an alternative to the carotenoid tradeoff hypothesis as a mechanism to explain the relationship among color, parasites, and oxidative stress.