Predation Risk and Habitat Complexity: Shoaling Behavioral Changes in Pimephales Promelas

Abstract

Grouping behavior in fish is a well‐understood phenomenon present in numerous species. Habitat and predation risk are two major influences on this behavior and our experiment was designed to quantify the how shoaling behavior in Pimephales promelas differed with an increase in complexity of environment and predation risk. We found that shoaling behavior was not different when habitat complexity increased or in the presence of a natural predator (Perca flavescens). While both of these factors are expected to affect grouping behaviors we were unable to quantitatively see a difference in the distances between individuals and the shoal diameter.