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.
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Acknowledgements
I wish to thank I. Anastasi, R. Camarda and R. Gorgone (University of Palermo) for invaluable help during field work. Special thanks are due to D. Bilello, G. Caminita, T. Licciardi, G. Lo Schiavo and M.C. Natale (Ustica Island MPA staff). This study was supported by a grant from the Ministero dell’Istruzione Università e Ricerca (M.I.U.R., Progetto Giovani Ricercatori) to M.M. and is part of his Ph.D. thesis.
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Milazzo, M. Evaluation of a behavioural response of Mediterranean coastal fishes to novel recreational feeding situation. Environ Biol Fish 91, 127–132 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-011-9784-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-011-9784-4