Behavioural syndromes in fishes: a review with implications for ecology and fisheries management

Abstract

This review examines the contribution of research on fishes to the growing field of behavioural syndromes. Current knowledge of behavioural syndromes in fishes is reviewed with respect to five main axes of animal personality: (1) shyness-boldness, (2) exploration-avoidance, (3) activity, (4) aggressiveness and (5) sociability. Compared with other taxa, research on fishes has played a leading role in describing the shy-bold personality axis and has made innovative contributions to the study of the sociability dimension by incorporating social network theory. Fishes are virtually the only major taxon in which behavioural correlations have been compared between populations. This research has guided the field in examining how variation in selection regime may shape personality. Recent research on fishes has also made important strides in understanding genetic and neuroendocrine bases for behavioural syndromes using approaches involving artificial selection, genetic mapping, candidate gene and functional genomics. This work has illustrated consistent individual variation in highly complex neuroendocrine and gene expression pathways. In contrast, relatively little work on fishes has examined the ontogenetic stability of behavioural syndromes or their fitness consequences. Finally, adopting a behavioural syndrome framework in fisheries management issues including artificial propagation, habitat restoration and invasive species, may promote restoration success. Few studies, however, have examined the ecological relevance of behavioural syndromes in the field. Knowledge of how behavioural syndromes play out in the wild will be crucial to incorporating such a framework into management practices.

Covariation between behaviour and physiology indicators of coping style in zebrafish (Danio rerio)

“…Huntingford & Adams 2005, Brown et al 2009, Weiss et al 2011 and conservation (e.g. Conrad et al 2011, Vegvari et al 2011, Gherardi et al 2012. The objective of the current study, therefore, was to investigate the association between behavioural traits related to coping style, corticosteroid receptor expression and stressor-induced cortisol concentrations at different recovery time points after repeated stress, using the zebrafish as a model system.…”

Anaesthesia and handling stress effects on pigmentation and monoamines in Arctic charr

“…Proactive individuals are more aggressive, have a higher general activity, forming behavioural routines more easily, and respond to stress with a lower hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis reactivity as compared to reactive individuals (Koolhaas et al 1999;Koolhaas et al 2007). In recent years, a plethora of studies have shown that stress coping styles are evident in teleost fish (Øverli et al 2005;Schjolden and Winberg 2007;Koolhaas et al 2010;Conrad et al 2011;Castanheira et al 2015).…”

Evolution of boldness and life history in response to selective harvesting

“…A plethora of recent studies has revealed that fishes indeed reveal less plasticity in their behaviors than previously believed, forming stable among-individual differences in 144 behavioral types (Conrad et al 2011;Mittelbach et al 2014). One of the key personality traits in animals in general is boldness (Réale et al 2007), which is often correlated with 146 other personality traits such as aggression, exploration, sociability or activity, thereby 8 creating behavioral syndromes (Sih et al 2004).…”

“…A rich literature has shown that the behavior expressed by individual fish plays a 114 key role in exposing individuals to fishing gear (Pitcher 1995;Conrad et al 2011;Løkkeborg et al 2014). However, the specific behaviors that may be under selection 116 depend on the species and the type of gear.…”