New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research abstracts
Short communication
Avoidance of native versus non-native predator odours by migrating whitebait
and juveniles of the common galaxiid, Galaxias maculatus
Felicity McLean
Nicole C. Barbee
Stephen E. Swearer
Department of Zoology
University of Melbourne
Parkville
Victoria 3010 Australia
email: sswearer@unimelb.edu.au
Abstract Avoidance of predator odours by migrating Galaxias
maculatus was studied in the laboratory using a two-chamber choice tank.
The odours of a native predator (short-finned eel, Anguilla australis)
and an introduced predator (rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss) were
tested on both whitebait (i.e., new recruits) and juveniles. Both whitebait
and juveniles exhibited avoidance behaviour when exposed to eel odours. There
was no avoidance response from either the whitebait or juvenile G. maculatus when
exposed to trout odours, which could suggest differences in the ability of G. maculatus to
detect native and introduced predators. Observed negative effects of introduced
predators on native species may be owing in part to the absence of innate avoidance
behaviour in native prey species.
Keywords olfactory cues; predator avoidance; introduced species;
choice experiments
New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, 2007, Vol. 41:
175–184
0028–8330/07/4102–0175 © The Royal Society
of New Zealand 2007
M06045; Online publication date 22 May 2007. Received 21 July 2006;
accepted 5 December 2006
PDF file of entire paper: Print-quality (331K) |
screen-quality (271K)
This year's abstracts |
Journal home page |
All abstracts |
Publishing home page
