Document Type
Article
Publication Date
9-20-2011
Abstract
Many species of fishes are aggressive when placed in small aquaria. Aggression can negatively affect the welfare of those individuals toward whom it is directed. Animals may behave aggressively in order to defend resources such as food, shelter, mates, and offspring. The decision to defend depends on the distribution of resources and on ecological factors such as number of competitors, amount of available space, and amount of habitat complexity. This study tested the effects of these factors on aggression in a common aquarium fish, the Midas cichlid (Amphilophus citrinellus). The study found that time spent behaving aggressively was not associated with small-scale differences in group size or available space. Aggression was significantly lower in a large aquarium with a complex habitat. Aquaria of sizes typically used in the companion animal (pet) hobby did not provide optimal welfare for cichlids housed with aggressive conspecifics. The public should be aware that this and similar species require larger aquaria with complex habitat, which elicit more natural behavior.
Language
English
Publication Title
Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science
Rights
© Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. This is the peer reviewed Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis and is deposited under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Recommended Citation
Oldfield, R. G. (2011). Aggression and Welfare in a Common Aquarium Fish, the Midas Cichlid. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, 14(4), 340–360. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888705.2011.600664
Manuscript Version
Accepted Manuscript