Impacts of additional noise on the social interactions of a cooperatively breeding fish.

ABSTRACT: Anthropogenic noise is a global pollutant known to affect the behaviour of individual animals in all taxa studied. However, there has been relatively little experimental testing of the effects of additional noise on social interactions between conspecifics, despite these forming a crucial aspect of daily life for most species. Here, we use established paradigms to investigate how white-noise playback affects both group defensive actions against an intruder and associated within-group behaviours in a model fish species, the cooperatively breeding cichlid Neolamprologus pulcher. Additional noise did not alter defensive behaviour, but did result in changes to within-group behaviour. Both dominant and subordinate females, but not the dominant male, exhibited less affiliation and showed

SUBMITTER: Braga Goncalves I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8316797 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature