Behavioral plasticity, honest signaling, and parental investment in Betta splendens: an integrative review across environmental and evolutionary contexts
April 27, 2026
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| Article Title: | Behavioral plasticity, honest signaling, and parental investment in Betta splendens: an integrative review across environmental and evolutionary contexts |
| Authors: | Petrescu-Mag I.V. |
| Affiliation: | Department of Environmental Engineering and Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Cluj-Napoca, 400372 Cluj-Napoca, Romania Bioflux SRL, 400488 Cluj-Napoca, Romania Doctoral School of Engineering Science, University of Oradea, 410087 Oradea, Romania WABBA International Bodybuilding and Fitness LTD, E11 1HT London, United Kingdom |
| Abstract: | This review examines behavioral plasticity, visual signaling, and parental strategies in Betta splendens as an integrative model of context-dependent behavior. Adaptation to hypoxic and turbid environments, supported by the labyrinth organ, enables energetically costly behaviors such as aggression and courtship, while environmental and developmental factors shape behavioral variation. Social context and domestication further drive divergence in aggression and stress responses. Visual displays and coloration function as condition-dependent signals with measurable energetic costs, consistent with honest signaling theory, and are strongly influenced by environmental conditions such as turbidity and light. Male parental care, expressed through bubble nesting or mouthbrooding, reflects adaptive trade-offs between current and future reproduction. Overall, Betta illustrates how environmental, physiological, and evolutionary processes interact to generate flexible life-history strategies. |
| Keywords: | visual communication, parental care, sexual conflict, phenotypic plasticity, fish behavior, evolutionary ecology. |
| *Correspondence: | Ioan Valentin Petrescu-Mag, Department of Environmental Engineering and Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Cluj-Napoca, 3-5 Calea Mănăștur street, 400372 Cluj-Napoca, Romania, Tel. +40-744470794, Fax. +40-264593792, email: ioan.mag@usamvcluj.ro |
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