Abstract
Food provisioning for fish is a very common leisure activity, especially in tourist attractions, causing impacts that are still poorly understood. There are many species of territorial fish to whom energy availability can limit aggressiveness and population growth. Our case study evaluated whether food provisioning and the resulting population density modify aggressive behavior in a territorial cichlid, the Congo tilapia (Tilapia rendalli). We compared the aggressiveness between a population that receives large amounts of food and has high density and an unfed and low-density population. Aggressiveness was the same between provisioned and non-provisioned treatments, except when we offered food, which stimulated aggression in the unprovisioned area. Food provisioning by humans and density reduced nest area, but did not increase aggressiveness, suggesting a possible habituation to the presence of conspecifics and a reduction in competitive aggression.
Highlights
Feeding fish as a tourism and leisure attraction affects the natural behavior of many species (BESSA; GONÇALVES-DE-FREITAS, 2014)
There are some situations, for example environments with food shortages or with a lot of competition, in which habitat change reduces food availability and conservation could benefit from food provisioning (EWEN et al, 2015), this is becoming an urgent issue with the growing presence of humans in preserved locations, and the impacts this human-wildlife interaction brings (BLUMSTEIN et al, 2017), including to the aquatic environment
The Congo tilapia (Tilapia rendalli) we used reach as much as 45 cm in standard length and 2.5 kg (BOULENGER, 1897), inhabiting warm lenthic water bodies (CAULTON, 1977)
Summary
Feeding fish as a tourism and leisure attraction affects the natural behavior of many species (BESSA; GONÇALVES-DE-FREITAS, 2014). Food provisioning negatively affects fish by reducing health (BROOKHOUSE et al, 2013), altering habitat use (FITZPATRICK et al, 2011; ALBUQUERQUE et al, 2014) and changing population structure (MILAZZO et al, 2005; ILARRI et al, 2008; FEITOSA et al, 2012). It is possible that food provisioning accelerates fish habituation to humans (GEFFROY et al, 2015), reducing escape reactions and increasing predation risk (MILAZZO et al, 2006). Many populations, including fish, tend to grow in response to food availability (STENBERGER; GILBERT, 1985; PETRIK et al, 2019), and this bottom-up population control has been shown to be more effective than top-down control by predators in fish (KOKKONEN et al, 2018). Food offered by humans has a large array of effects on fish, reaching aspects of fish biology still understudied
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