WILD FISH

BEHAVIOR

Letac, Antonio
Paris, Norielyn
Sison, Ariel
Tad-awan, Maricel
WILD FISH BEHAVIOR

Contents

Background
Migration Behavior
Social Behavior
Feeding Behavior
Aggression Behavior
Resting Behavior
Reproduction Behavior
Background
Behavior

 Action or re-action to stimuli

 Happens in the brain (non-motor) and can be
manifested through muscular response, but
often involves both
 Animals behave in ways that maximize their
fitness
Background
FRESHWATER ENVIRONMENT

 Consist of rivers and lakes,

with a salinity of less than
0.05%
 Mostly freshwater tropical
fish are shoaling fish.
Background
MARINE ENVIRONMENT
 Salt water fishes lives
 Many fish assemble in
large schools often with
thousands of members
that move and feed in
unison
Migration
- Fish migrations are usually round-trip

 Reasons for migration

- Food gathering
- Temperature adjustment
- Meet requirements for
reproduction
- Breeding
- Protection
- Avoid adverse condition
Migration
Classification
 Diadromous
- Travel between sea & fresh water
 Anadromous
- most of life at sea, breed in fresh water
 Catadromous
- most of life in fresh water, breed at sea
 Amphidromous
- migrate between water types at some stage
other than breeding
 Potamodromous
- Migrate within a fresh water system
 Ocenodromous
- Migrate to different regions of the ocean
Migration
Orientation
- Orientation to changes in temperature, salinity, and
chemicals
- Orientation by the sun
- Orientation to geomagnetic and geoelectric fields

Timing
- Annual
- Daily
- Generational
Migration
Migration Requirement
 Adjusting physiologically
to new water conditions
– Temperature
– Light
– Water chemistry
Disadvantages
 Expenditure of energy
– Most must store energy
before migration
 Risk from predation
Social Behavior
 Shoaling
- Social grouping of fish
- Occurs throughout life in about 25% of fish species
- Half of all fish shoal at some time
 Benefits of Shoaling
- Gives a predator many
moving targets
- Confuses predators
- Increases chances at the
individual level
- Increases food finding ability
- Keeps potential mates in
close proximity
Social Behavior
 School
- a polarized, synchronized
shoal (has coordinated,
directed movements)

 Pods
- Tightly grouped school
- Move as a single unit
(including making quick turns)
- Makes the school appear like
one large organism
- Protection from predators
 Social Behavior
How do Schools Work?
 Requires great deal of
coordination among individuals
in the school
 Vision is primary sensory cue for
coordinating movement
 Use of optomotor reaction -
individual movement is
coordinated with movement of
some other visually distinctive
object - e.g. a spot or a stripe
Social Behavior
Reduced predation risk
Functions 

- creates patchy distribution

 Hydrodynamic of prey, large areas with no
efficiency prey
- individuals obtain
- once school is found,
reduction in drag by
individual risk of being captured
following in “slip-
is reduced by dilution
stream” of neighbors
- limited evidence in - confusion of prey by
support of this protean displays, encirclement,
other behaviors
 Social Behavior
 Dominance hierarchies
- use displays and nips rather than full-blown
aggression
- round gobies will flare fins and operculae, and
spit sand
- leaves dominant fish with optimal access to
- refuge, food, mates
- usually size-related
 Social Behavior
Functions  Reproduction
 Feeding - increases likelihood of
finding a mate
- increases effective
search space for the - facilitates coordination of
individual (more eyes, preparedness (behavioral
separated by greater and pheromonal cues)
distance) - facilitates arriving at right
- coordinated movements spawning site at right time
to help break up schools
of prey - analogous to
pack behavior in wolves -
by tunas, jacks
Social Behavior
Liabilities
 Increased likelihood of
disease & parasite
transmission
 Becoming more
conspicuous to some
predators
– Harvested more easily
by man
Feeding Behavior

 Morphology
- often a key to feeding
behavior
- many fish have
specialized habits
- actual feeding may
depend on what is
available
 Feeding Behavior
 Optimal foraging
- Take whatever is closest, as long as it
is suitable food
- Highest quality of food for the least
amount of effort
- All else being equal, take the largest
prey
- Don’t choose prey that takes more
energy than it provides
- Be in a habitat that provides the type
of food you are looking for
Feeding Behavior
Finding Food
 Visual detection
*Diurnal feeders
- means being in the open
in bright light
 Olfaction
- smell
- common in bottom dwelling
species
Aggressive Behavior

 Direct charges
- Often includes biting
 Ritualistic displays
- Modified swimming
- Flaring gill covers
- Color changes
- Threatening
movements
 Aggressive Behavior
Reasons

• Defense of territory
- Usually connected with
reproduction
- Sometimes to keep food source

• Defense of brood
- Repelling competitors for mates
Resting Behavior
• Inactive state
• Some fish spend a large part of the day not doing
anything
• Many species change color patterns
• Most fish rest on or near the substrate
• Many fish have a specified time of day when resting
takes place
• Some fish never rest (Sleep swimming?)
– Must keep moving (sharks)
 Reproductive behavior

 Sexual selection
 Courtship
- series of active
movements
 Female choice
 Male aggression
Reproductive behavior
Mating strategies
 Promiscuous
- Presumably the original fish mating system
as a result of external fertilization
- Many males and many females mate
simultaneously
ex. Herrings
 Monogamous
- One male and one female mate exclusively.
ex. Tropical cichlids
Reproductive behavior
POLYGAMOUS
 A. POLYGYNY  B. POLYANDRY
- one male with several - one female seeks to
females mate with several
Ex. Coltidae males
(sculpins) Ex. Pipefish
Many Thanks!!!!