Tommaso Ruberto: PhD Student 2018 - present
I am a PhD Student at Liverpool John Moores University, co-supervised by Dr Adam Reddon, Dr Will Swaney and Dr Hazel Nichols, and my research is focused on understanding the expression of conflict management behaviour in the cooperatively breeding cichlid fish, Neolaprologus pulcher.
Within the animal kingdom, forming a social group provides substantial advantages over solitary living, particularly in terms of attenuating predation risk, locating food sources or shelters, and finding a mate. Yet, living in groups also entails an increase in the competition for resources – for example, food, shelter, or mating partners - which may cause intra-group conflicts. Conflicts are resolved when one dominant individual outcompetes its group mates for the control of the specific resource, hence in social species, individuals must be able to cope with these dynamics to establish stable social groups. Conflict management behaviours usually encompasses a complex interplay between dominance hierarchies, kinship and other behavioural adaptations, such as aggression, submission, and cooperation. To fully understand the expression of conflict management behaviour, we must consider both the functional significance of these behaviours and the mechanistic substrates that underpin them.
The main goal of my PhD project is to identify such underpinning mechanisms in N. pulcher. N. pulcher are small bodied fish endemic to Lake Tanganyika (Africa) that live and breed in highly complex permanent social groups. Using an integrative and multidisciplinary approach, I focus on the phenotypic expression of helping and submissive behaviours of N. pulcher during the resolution of conflicts, and the role of nonapeptide hormones, such as isotocin and vasotocin, on the regulation of these social behaviours.