Social enhancement and social inhibition of foraging behaviour in hatchery‐reared Atlantic salmon

• Published in: Journal of Fish Biology
• Main Authors: Brown, C., Laland, K.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2002
• Subjects: Atlantic salmon; Salmo salar
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1095-8649.2002.tb01857.x; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fj.1095-8649.2002.tb01857.x; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1095-8649.2002.tb01857.x

The results of two experiments showed that observation of a trained conspecific Atlantic salmon Salmo salar significantly increased the rate at which naïve hatchery‐reared fish accepted novel, live prey items, whereas the presence of an untrained conspecific actually decreased learning rates due to social inhibition. Pre‐release training involving exposure of hatchery‐reared fish to live prey items in the presence of pre‐trained demonstrators would result in a significant enhancement in their foraging success on release and help prevent starvation, which is thought to be one of the principal causes of post‐release mortality in hatchery‐reared fishes.