TY - JOUR
T1 - External tagging does not affect the feeding behavior of a coral reef fish, Chaetodon vagabundus (Pisces: Chaetodontidae)
AU - Berumen, Michael L.
AU - Almany, Glenn R.
N1 - KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-10-01
Acknowledgements: Invaluable logistic support for this project was provided by the crew of the M/V FeBrina and the M/V Warrior as well as the staff of theMahonia NaDari research station in Kimbe, Papua New Guinea. For field assistance, we thank J Almany, D deVere and C Syms. The authors gratefully acknowledge funding from the Fulbright Program, National Science Foundation and the Australian Research Council. Comments from MS Pratchett and two anonymous reviewers greatly improved the manuscript.
PY - 2009/11/10
Y1 - 2009/11/10
N2 - Increasingly, the ability to recognize individual fishes is important for studies of population dynamics, ecology, and behavior. Although a variety of methods exist, external tags remain one of the most widely applied because they are both effective and cost efficient. However, a key assumption is that neither the tagging procedure nor the presence of a tag negatively affects the individual. While this has been demonstrated for relatively coarse metrics such as growth and survival, few studies have examined the impact of tags and tagging on more subtle aspects of behavior. We tagged adult vagabond butterflyfish (Chaetodon vagabundus) occupying a 30-ha insular reef in Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea, using a commonly-utilized t-bar anchor tag. We quantified and compared feeding behavior (bite rate), which is sensitive to stress, of tagged and untagged individuals over four separate sampling periods spanning 4 months post-tagging. Bite rates did not differ between tagged and untagged individuals at each sampling period and, combined with additional anecdotal observations of normal pairing behavior and successful reproduction, suggest that tagging did not adversely affect individuals. © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009.
AB - Increasingly, the ability to recognize individual fishes is important for studies of population dynamics, ecology, and behavior. Although a variety of methods exist, external tags remain one of the most widely applied because they are both effective and cost efficient. However, a key assumption is that neither the tagging procedure nor the presence of a tag negatively affects the individual. While this has been demonstrated for relatively coarse metrics such as growth and survival, few studies have examined the impact of tags and tagging on more subtle aspects of behavior. We tagged adult vagabond butterflyfish (Chaetodon vagabundus) occupying a 30-ha insular reef in Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea, using a commonly-utilized t-bar anchor tag. We quantified and compared feeding behavior (bite rate), which is sensitive to stress, of tagged and untagged individuals over four separate sampling periods spanning 4 months post-tagging. Bite rates did not differ between tagged and untagged individuals at each sampling period and, combined with additional anecdotal observations of normal pairing behavior and successful reproduction, suggest that tagging did not adversely affect individuals. © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009.
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10754/561459
UR - http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10641-009-9545-9
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=77949657363&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10641-009-9545-9
DO - 10.1007/s10641-009-9545-9
M3 - Article
SN - 0378-1909
VL - 86
SP - 447
EP - 450
JO - Environmental Biology of Fishes
JF - Environmental Biology of Fishes
IS - 4
ER -