ABSTRACT
Cleaning mutualism has attracted the interest of behavioural biologists and ecologists for more than half a century. It involves the removal of ectoparasites and tissue of 'client' species by 'cleaner' species. Cleaning mutualism is most widespread in the marine environment where both clients and cleaners are typically fish. Nevertheless, several species of shrimp and birds also gain food from cleaning, and their clients comprise turtles, hippopotami, crocodiles and various ungulates (reviews by Losey et al., 1999; Cote 2000). In this chapter, we will ignore this large variety of cleaning partnerships-most of which are not well studied-and focus on the best understood examples of marine cleaning mutualism. Most research has been conducted on four cleaner fish species, namely the
cleaner wrasse, Labroides dimidiatus (occurring in the Indo-Pacific from the Red Sea to the Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea; Fig. 16.1), the closely related cleaner L. phthirophagus (endemic to Hawaii) and two species of similar-looking cleaning gobies, Elacatinus evelynae, and E. prochilos (found in sympatry in the Caribbean; Fig. 16.2). Our current understanding of cleaning mutualism is largely derived from studies of these species.
