Passive dispersal potential of medaka eggs by attaching to waterbirds

Abstract

Colonization of new habitats is a key event in forming current distributions in organisms. It has been speculated that freshwater fish eggs can be dispersed passively by attaching to or egestion from waterbirds that arrive in wetland habitats. Recent research showed that some freshwater fish eggs could be excreted alive from birds and then successfully hatch, but scientific evidence of bird-mediated fish dispersal is still limited to endozoochory (internal transport through a bird’s digestive tract). Here, we experimentally suggest the dispersal potential in another way or epizoochory (external dispersal by attaching to waterbirds), using medaka Oryzias latipes, which spawns on aquatic plants. Our field experiment showed that waterbirds could carry artificial aquatic plants among waterbodies. Medaka eggs attached to aquatic plants could survive in the air for up to 18 h with a median lethal period of 16.3 h. Those two findings raise the possibility of the epizoochory of medaka in nature.