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MARCO MILAZZO

Evaluation of a behavioural response of Mediterranean coastal fishes to novel recreational feeding situation

  • Authors: Milazzo, M
  • Publication year: 2011
  • Type: Articolo in rivista (Articolo in rivista)
  • Key words: Conditional learning; Fish feeding; Behavior; Food provisioning
  • OA Link: http://hdl.handle.net/10447/55366

Abstract

Fish may learn to associate food with human presence through recreational hand-feeding, a popular tourist activity. The conditional learning-e. g. when an organism learns by continuous exposure to one stimulus-of different coastal fish species exposed to novel feeding situations was evaluated. The latencies of learning response to the initiation of supplementary feeding were rapid and species-specific. However differences in the learning response between different fishes decreased over time, demonstrating that associating with others might incur costs especially for small-sized species, likely due to increased competition for food. Nevertheless some other fish species did not acquire any specific human oriented behavior, being naturally timid or avoiding humans.