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Behavioral adjustments to prior predation experience and food deprivation of a common cyprinid fish species vary between singletons and a group

Fish often undergo predation stress and food shortages in nature, and living in groups may provide the ecological benefits of decreased predator risk but the costs of increased food competition. The main aim of the present study was to test whether the behavioral response of qingbo (Spinibarbus sine...

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Autores principales: Wang, Ya, Fu, Shi-Jian, Fu, Cheng
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6622156/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31328032
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.7236
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author Wang, Ya
Fu, Shi-Jian
Fu, Cheng
author_facet Wang, Ya
Fu, Shi-Jian
Fu, Cheng
author_sort Wang, Ya
collection PubMed
description Fish often undergo predation stress and food shortages in nature, and living in groups may provide the ecological benefits of decreased predator risk but the costs of increased food competition. The main aim of the present study was to test whether the behavioral response of qingbo (Spinibarbus sinensis) to predators and/or starvation differed between a singleton and a group. We measured the locomotor activity and distance to a predator and/or food item of prior predator-experienced, starved, double-treated and control qingbo; the qingbo were tested both as singletons and in a group (five individuals). Fish from all groups showed increased activity when tested collectively compared to individually. The predator-experienced fish showed decreased locomotor activity to predators as an antipredator strategy when tested as singletons; however, increased locomotor activity occurred when tested in a group, which might be partially due to the decreased predator risk when living in a group and thus higher levels of boldness. As expected, starvation elicited increased activity indicating increased foraging willingness when tested in a group; however, the difference between starved and normal-fed fish was no longer significant when they were tested as singletons, possibly due to the increased predation risk and decreased food competition when living individually and higher behavioral variation among individual fish than among those in a shoal. Compared with the control fish, the double-treated fish showed no difference in activity when tested both individually and collectively (except a slower speed when tested in a group). The reason for the results from the singletons might be an offset of the effect of predator exposure and starvation. The reason for this difference in the group might be due to the impaired body condition indicated by a slower swimming speed as a consequence of severe stress. The present study demonstrated that behavioral adjustment was closely related to the size of the group, which might be due to differences in the predation risk and food competition.
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spelling pubmed-66221562019-07-19 Behavioral adjustments to prior predation experience and food deprivation of a common cyprinid fish species vary between singletons and a group Wang, Ya Fu, Shi-Jian Fu, Cheng PeerJ Animal Behavior Fish often undergo predation stress and food shortages in nature, and living in groups may provide the ecological benefits of decreased predator risk but the costs of increased food competition. The main aim of the present study was to test whether the behavioral response of qingbo (Spinibarbus sinensis) to predators and/or starvation differed between a singleton and a group. We measured the locomotor activity and distance to a predator and/or food item of prior predator-experienced, starved, double-treated and control qingbo; the qingbo were tested both as singletons and in a group (five individuals). Fish from all groups showed increased activity when tested collectively compared to individually. The predator-experienced fish showed decreased locomotor activity to predators as an antipredator strategy when tested as singletons; however, increased locomotor activity occurred when tested in a group, which might be partially due to the decreased predator risk when living in a group and thus higher levels of boldness. As expected, starvation elicited increased activity indicating increased foraging willingness when tested in a group; however, the difference between starved and normal-fed fish was no longer significant when they were tested as singletons, possibly due to the increased predation risk and decreased food competition when living individually and higher behavioral variation among individual fish than among those in a shoal. Compared with the control fish, the double-treated fish showed no difference in activity when tested both individually and collectively (except a slower speed when tested in a group). The reason for the results from the singletons might be an offset of the effect of predator exposure and starvation. The reason for this difference in the group might be due to the impaired body condition indicated by a slower swimming speed as a consequence of severe stress. The present study demonstrated that behavioral adjustment was closely related to the size of the group, which might be due to differences in the predation risk and food competition. PeerJ Inc. 2019-07-08 /pmc/articles/PMC6622156/ /pubmed/31328032 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.7236 Text en ©2019 Wang et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Animal Behavior
Wang, Ya
Fu, Shi-Jian
Fu, Cheng
Behavioral adjustments to prior predation experience and food deprivation of a common cyprinid fish species vary between singletons and a group
title Behavioral adjustments to prior predation experience and food deprivation of a common cyprinid fish species vary between singletons and a group
title_full Behavioral adjustments to prior predation experience and food deprivation of a common cyprinid fish species vary between singletons and a group
title_fullStr Behavioral adjustments to prior predation experience and food deprivation of a common cyprinid fish species vary between singletons and a group
title_full_unstemmed Behavioral adjustments to prior predation experience and food deprivation of a common cyprinid fish species vary between singletons and a group
title_short Behavioral adjustments to prior predation experience and food deprivation of a common cyprinid fish species vary between singletons and a group
title_sort behavioral adjustments to prior predation experience and food deprivation of a common cyprinid fish species vary between singletons and a group
topic Animal Behavior
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6622156/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31328032
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.7236
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