Fish Behaviour PDF

Preface

Our understanding of fish behaviour has flourished over the last two decades and given the current wealth of literature on fish behaviour, we felt it was time to produce a book that would bring together many of these new and exciting discoveries. The breadth of material that we could pull on was impressive, and interestingly the use of interdisciplinary approaches, for example, by combining behaviour studies with physiology and genetics, is currently increasing. Although we cannot claim that the contents are a comprehensive review, we have strived to invite authors whose work naturally addresses a range of topics. In particular, we have tried to ensure that the book tackles issues from the perspective of the mechanisms underlying different behaviours all the way through to the functional responses that these mechanisms generate. Thus, we consider how the nervous system and associated physiology enable fish to make decisions, the manner in which these systems establish different types of behavioural patterns and life histories, and how these combine to produce complex behaviours.

The diversity of fish species is striking, and the behavioural specialisations that have been documented are truly amazing. In many cases, researchers have used different fish species as model systems with which to address fundamental questions about evolution and fitness, and often these studies have found that behaviour and differences in behaviour are what underpins these processes. The examples used in the different chapters are based on empirical observations of behaviour from both natural field settings and more controlled laboratory environments, but they also make use of empirical models that investigate the influence of discrete variables on fish behaviour. Technological breakthroughs have also contributed to our growing knowledge of fish behaviour. Molecular techniques allow us to understand how the behaviour of the individual can influence population processes, and improved tagging and tracking now allows us to follow some species as they migrate across seas.

The book is structured to guide the reader from consideration of behavioural mechanisms that generate different categories of behaviour to how their functional effects influence fish in their day-to-day lives. To this end the chapters are divided into three different sections to consider firstly how basic behaviours are generated; secondly, how behaviour is influenced and shaped by the local environment; and finally, how behaviour allows fish to generate complex and integrated responses to the world around them. The styles of the different chapters are necessarily individual, but we hope that the sub-structuring helps to guide and illustrate how our knowledge of fish behaviour now spans from the processes that generate and influence it through to ways in which such knowledge has important applied consequences for our interactions with fish, for example, with regard to aquaculture.