Wasteful carotenoid coloration and its effects on territorial behavior in a cichlid fish.

The famously diverse body coloration of cichlid fish serves communicative functions in mating and social interactions including competition for resources. Here, we examined the effects of a color pattern trait-the width of a yellow bar on a black body-on territorial competition in males and females of a color variant ("Ikola") of the Lake Tanganyika cichlid . First, measuring integumentary carotenoid concentrations in the yellow and black body regions, we established that wider yellow bars require more carotenoids allocated to body coloration.