ThRoewer
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"Social Control of Sex: Field Experiments with the Anemonefish Amphiprion bicinctus
Abstract:
From the underwater station Neritica, situated in 11 m depth off the shore of the Heinz-Steinitz-Marine-Laboratory in Eilat, Israel, experiments were carried out to investigate the influence of food restriction, social status, body size and relative frequency of aggressive interactions on protandric sex change in the anemonefish A. bicinctus. Some 47 fish were tagged and observed in different conditions. Caged conditions retard, sometimes even prevent sex change in dominant males; it is suggested that this is consequent upon the ensuing food restriction, also that this mechanism operates to prevent sex change in subdominants in freeliving conditions, through the aggressive restraint of dominant males. No solitary males, caged or free, complete a sex change. Complete functional sex change occurs only in well-fed aggressively dominant males at least 100 mm in body length in the presence of a social partner. The study shows that social stimuli are vital for the initiation of sex change in these males."
Source: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1439-0310.1983.tb01327.x/abstract
So it seems a single or too small clownfish can not become (fully) female.
Abstract:
From the underwater station Neritica, situated in 11 m depth off the shore of the Heinz-Steinitz-Marine-Laboratory in Eilat, Israel, experiments were carried out to investigate the influence of food restriction, social status, body size and relative frequency of aggressive interactions on protandric sex change in the anemonefish A. bicinctus. Some 47 fish were tagged and observed in different conditions. Caged conditions retard, sometimes even prevent sex change in dominant males; it is suggested that this is consequent upon the ensuing food restriction, also that this mechanism operates to prevent sex change in subdominants in freeliving conditions, through the aggressive restraint of dominant males. No solitary males, caged or free, complete a sex change. Complete functional sex change occurs only in well-fed aggressively dominant males at least 100 mm in body length in the presence of a social partner. The study shows that social stimuli are vital for the initiation of sex change in these males."
Source: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1439-0310.1983.tb01327.x/abstract
So it seems a single or too small clownfish can not become (fully) female.
