Behaviourally-mediated learning ability in an invasive marine fish
- PDF / 517,623 Bytes
- 13 Pages / 547.087 x 737.008 pts Page_size
- 62 Downloads / 189 Views
(0123456789().,-volV) ( 01234567 89().,-volV)
ORIGINAL PAPER
Behaviourally-mediated learning ability in an invasive marine fish Emma M. DeRoy
. Nigel E. Hussey . Hugh J. MacIsaac
Received: 28 June 2019 / Accepted: 29 July 2020 Ó Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract Invasive species can have profound impacts in non-native environments, the mechanisms behind which are often unclear. Learning and memory are notably two traits that may facilitate their impact. Behavioural traits can subsequently mediate learning ability in invasive species, the interaction between which may provide means by which to both better understand and manage invaders. We evaluated this relationship in lionfish (Pterois volitans), a species introduced to and invasive in the western Atlantic Ocean. We trained lionfish in a food reward task and assessed the degree to which behavioural traits and navigation strategy influenced their performance. We then evaluated memory retention by subjecting fish to training breaks of 5 to 42 days. Lionfish exhibited high
inter-individual variability in learning. Half of the lionfish tested learned to navigate the maze, whose performance was strongly mediated by behaviour. Learning ability was positively correlated with boldness, exploratory tendency, and speed of task completion, but irrespective of spatial navigation strategy. However, fast exploratory fish trained in the complex navigation strategy had difficulty adapting to changing environmental conditions, indicative of a speed-accuracy trade-off. Lionfish were able to remember the location of the food reward for up to 6 weeks. Behavioural-mediated learning may help explain and understand the high impact of lionfish and other nonindigenous species in their invaded range and may elucidate spatiotemporal context-dependencies in their ecological impact.
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-020-02329-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Keywords Behaviour Invasive species Impact Behavioural syndrome Speed-accuracy trade-off Memory Learning Context-dependent Lionfish
E. M. DeRoy (&) H. J. MacIsaac Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research, University of Windsor, 401 Sunset Avenue, Windsor, ON N9B 3P4, Canada e-mail: [email protected] N. E. Hussey Department of Biology, University of Windsor, 401 Sunset Avenue, Windsor, ON N9B 3P4, Canada H. J. MacIsaac School of Ecology and Environmental Science, Yunnan University, Kunming, China
Introduction The breadth of invasive species impacts is tremendous, in both scale and scope, ranging from those at the individual-level to population, community and ecosystem levels. A comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms underpinning ecological impacts is
123
E. M. DeRoy et al.
needed to efficiently manage invasive species (Pysˇek and Richardson 2010). To this end, considerable research has investigated the causes and correlates of invasion success. Behavioural traits and behavi
Data Loading...
