Culum Brown

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• PhD University of Queensland
• Professor at Macquarie University

Social hierarchies in sex-changing fish determine which fish will change sex, yet the complexities of hierarchy formation at the neurobehavioural level are still being unravelled. Here, we investigate the formation of social hierarchies within groups of New Zealand spotty wrasse, integrating behavioural observations with neural activation patterns...

Parental influences on offspring phenotype occurring through pathways other than via inherited DNA sequences are known as parental effects. Parental effects profoundly influence offspring behaviour, including behaviour laterality and personality, two traits that are widespread and of fundamental importance in the animal kingdom with clear fitness c...

A diverse array of animals has evolved the ability to use tools (e.g., primates, parrots, octopus, crabs, and wasps), but the factors leading to tool use evolution are poorly understood. Fishes could provide insight into these factors via comparison of ecological and morphological differences between tool-using and non-tool-using species. Anvil use...

Social learning is common among vertebrates, including fish. Learning from others reduces the risk and costs of adaptation. In some longer‐lived species, social learning can lead to the formation of persistent groups that pass learned adaptations from one generation to the next (culture). Variations in learned adaptations are subject to natural sel...

Globally, Siamese fighting fish ( Betta splendens ) continue to be sold and kept in small, barren jars or tanks, with little concern for their welfare. This study aimed to examine the impact of housing size and furnishings (i.e. live plants, refuges) on the behaviour of Siamese fighting fish, to understand optimal tank conditions. Thirteen male Sia...

We conducted the first comprehensive global assessment of the extinction risk of Australia's native freshwater fishes. Using International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) criteria, 37 % (88 species) of the 241 assessed species were threatened (Critically Endangered, Endangered or Vulnerable), with one being Extinct. Lepidogalaxiidae and Neo...

Social hierarchies in sex-changing fish determine which fish will change sex, yet little is known about how these hierarchies are formed at the neurobehavioral level. Here, we investigate the formation of social hierarchies within groups of the New Zealand spotty wrasse (spotty), integrating both behavioral observations of social activity with neur...

Cognitive bias is defined as the influence of emotions on cognitive processes. The concept of the cognitive judgement bias has its origins in human psychology but has been applied to animals over the past 2 decades. In this study we were interested in determining if laterality and personality traits, which are known to influence learning style, mig...

The Queensland Shark Control Program (QSCP) started in 1962 to reduce the number of shark-human incidents by deploying nets and drumlines across the most popular beaches. The program targets large shark species (white, tiger and bull sharks) that are potentially hazardous to bathers. However, this strategy is lethal for other sharks and marine wild...

With the increasingly global scale and scope of aquaculture, the need to match this development with improvements in fish welfare is a central societal and industry goal. We provide a comprehensive assessment of the farmed Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) literature with targeted examples focusing on Atlantic salmon farmed in Tasmania, Australia. We s...

Crater lake fishes are common evolutionary model systems, with recent studies suggesting a key role for gene flow in promoting rapid adaptation and speciation. However, the study of these young lakes can be complicated by human-mediated extinctions. Museum genomics approaches integrating genetic data from recently extinct species are, therefore, cr...

Storms can have significant impacts on wildlife and many animals, including birds, can predict a storm’s arrival and change their behaviour accordingly. Storms are often associated with changes in environmental variables, particularly with a fall in barometric pressure. Social animals may collectively detect and advertise the potential onset of inc...

Individual differences in laterality and personality are expected to covary, as emotions are processed differently by the two hemispheres and personality involves emotional behavior. Fish species are often used to investigate this topic due to the large variability in personality and laterality patterns. While some species show a positive relations...

Morphological differences in the peripheral (sensory) and central (brain) nervous system may confer sensory and/or behavioral variation in elasmobranchs, both across taxa and throughout ontogeny. Over the last century, sea surface temperatures have increased over 0.5 °C and are predicted to rise 1–4 °C by the year 2100, potentially affecting specie...

The translocation of species outside their natural range is a threat to aquatic biodiversity globally, especially freshwater fishes, as most are not only susceptible to predation and competition but readily hybridize with congeners. Running River rainbowfish (RRR, Melanotaenia sp.) is a narrow‐ranged, small‐bodied freshwater fish that recently beca...

Several factors affect the development of lateralization such as hormones and light exposure during early development. Laterality also often correlates with other behavioral traits. To examine whether there is a common mechanism underlying the development of laterality and other behaviors, we manipulated laterality by exposing embryos of the Wester...

Context Gamay is a coastal waterway of immense social, cultural and ecological value. Since European settlement, it has become a hub for industrialisation and human modification. There is growing desire for ecosystem-level management of urban waterways, but such efforts are often challenged by a lack of integrated knowledge. Aim and methods We sys...

For most vertebrates, sexual fate is genetically determined and remains fixed throughout life. However, for some teleost fishes sex is more plastic. Significant progress has been made in characterising the cellular and molecular processes that underpin gonadal sex change. The brain-mediated mechanisms that underlie and initiate this transformation, ho...

Although pervasive, the effects of climate change vary regionally, possibly resulting in differential behavioral, physiological, and/or phenotypic responses among populations within broadly distributed species. Juvenile Port Jackson sharks (Heterodontus portusjacksoni) from eastern and southern Australia were reared at their current (17.6 °C Adelai...

Social learning is widespread among vertebrates and perhaps even invertebrates. It provides a method to discover new information or adopt novel behaviour patterns rapidly without the need to explore the possibilities for one’s self. Social learning enables information to travel rapidly between peers but it can also transcend generations, leading to...

Recreational fishing waste, produced from processing catches at shore‐based fish cleaning facilities and discarded into adjacent waters, is foraged by various aquatic species. However, the potential alterations to the diet of consumers of these resources are poorly studied. Smooth stingrays (Bathytoshia brevicaudata) are a large demersal mesopredat...

Context Understanding migratory species’ habitat selection is complicated by variation in movement strategies. Stable-isotope analysis provides a powerful tool to investigate such variation. Aims We used acoustic telemetry and stable-isotope analysis to better understand the movement strategies of Port Jackson sharks. Methods We compared the δ¹³C...

Context It is common for recreational anglers to discard waste produced from filleting catches back into the water, which results in a highly spatio-temporally predictable food subsidy for wildlife to scavenge. However, the behavioural responses of these scavengers has received little attention. Aims We aimed to assess the visitation of a common m...

450 million years of evolution have given chondrichthyans (sharks, rays and allies) ample time to adapt perfectly to their respective everyday life challenges and cognitive abilities have played an important part in that process. The diversity of niches that sharks and rays occupy corresponds to matching diversity in brains and behaviour, but we ha...

We systematically reviewed published literature, Traditional Ecological Knowledge and consulted with local scientists to synthesise all published knowledge of Gamay’s (Botany Bay, Sydney) aquatic ecosystem, identifying key knowledge gaps and future research opportunities for this urban waterway.

Unifying models have shown that the amount of space used by animals (e.g., activity space, home range) scales allometrically with body mass for terrestrial taxa; however, such relationships are far less clear for marine species. We compiled movement data from 1,596 individuals across 79 taxa collected using a continental passive acoustic telemetry...

Knowledge of the drivers of fine-scale spatial ecology in wide-ranging marine species is vital to understand population structuring and conserve threatened species. Movements and habitat use are likely to be strongly influenced by social relationships between individuals, and social units within animal populations may be subject to distinct selecti...

Supplementary information for Perryman et al. 2022. (Investigating manta ray collective movements via drone surveys)

Research on free-ranging species of marine megafauna is required to understand their behavioural ecology, including how groups respond to environmental and anthropogenic pressures. New technologies are opening up potential for detailed observational research on these species in the wild, especially on group-based and collective behaviours. Reef man...

Learning is a process that allows animals to develop adaptive behavioural responses to novel situations within an individual's lifetime. The simplest form of learning, habituation, acts a fundamental filter mechanism, which allows animals to ignore irrelevant recurring stimuli, thereby freeing up fitness-related resources, such as time and energy,...

Urban river catchments are often severely affected by human activities but may still retain significant biodiversity. Surprisingly little is known about the behaviour of urban fishes, even those popular with anglers. Key environmental variables that trigger fish behaviour, such as river flow, are highly affected by instream structures including wei...

Despite the potential benefits gained from behavioural lateralisation, defined as the asymmetrical expression of cognitive functioning, this trait demonstrates widespread variation within and between populations. Numerous methodologies have been applied to investigate lateralisation, although whether different methodologies give consistent results...

This datasheet on Behaviour covers Identity, Description, Further Information.

The plight of fishes has almost certainly got worse since Bentham (1789) coined the phrase “The question is not Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but Can they suffer?” Despite the fact that fishes are increasingly recognised as sentient animals worthy of protection under animal welfare legislation in many countries around the world, fishing prac...

Methods for Fish Biology, 2nd edition Chapter 16: Behavior Julianna P. Kadar, Catarina Vila Pouca, Robert Perryman, Joni Pini-Fitzsimmons, Sherrie Chambers, Connor Gervais, and Culum Brown doi: https://doi.org/10.47886/9781934874615.ch16 Kadar, J. P., C. V. Pouca, R. Perryman, J. Pini-Fitzsimmons, S. Chambers, C. Gervais, and C. Brown. 2022. Pa...

The residency and movements of a single acoustically tagged female crested horn shark (Heterodontus galeatus) were monitored in Jervis Bay, Australia. The individual was intermittently detected by receivers throughout the 8‐year study period and showed preference for particular rocky reefs in terms of its residency indices and duration of residency...

Examining the movement ecology of mesopredators is fundamental to developing an understanding of their biology, ecology and behaviour, as well as the communities and ecosystems they influence. The limited research on the residency and movements of benthic marine mesopredators has primarily used visual tags, which do not allow for the efficient and...

This handbook lays out the science behind how animals think, remember, create, calculate, and remember. It provides concise overviews on major areas of study such as animal communication and language, memory and recall, social cognition, social learning and teaching, numerical and quantitative abilities, as well as innovation and problem solving. T...

17α-Ethynylestradiol (EE2) is a synthetic hormone that has become a widespread problem in the aquatic environments. The immunomodulatory effects of EE2 in fish have attracted much attention in recent years; however, little is known about its immunotoxicological impacts. This study was conducted to investigate the immune function of female Siamese f...

Limited information exists about the temporal residency patterns of marine predators, especially at the individual level. Temporal partitioning of resources can reduce intra-specific competition, but this has seldom been examined in predators in marine ecosystems. Here, we used 8 years of acoustic telemetry data from 27 receivers deployed in a larg...

With over 30,000 recognized species, fishes exhibit an extraordinary variety of morphological, behavioural, and life-history traits. The field of fish cognition has grown markedly with numerous studies on fish spatial navigation, numeracy, learning, decision-making, and even theory of mind. However, most cognitive research on fishes takes place in...

Given the vulnerability of early life stages to predation, many species elicit antipredator responses to predator-associated cues (e.g. alarm cues, necromones). However, the response used may vary between predatory stimuli. Antipredator responses, while ostensibly enhancing survival, are costly, either resulting in missed opportunities (e.g. foragi...

The advent of new technologies and statistical analyses has provided valuable insights into chondrichthyan social behavior. It has become apparent that sharks and rays lead more complex social lives than previously believed. Heterarchy combines hierarchy and social network theory and although it is not a new concept, it is rarely applied to animal...

Reef manta rays (Mobula alfredi) are social elasmobranchs that have structured societies and actively interact with preferred social partners. Being able to detect cues and signals produced by conspecifics is vital in enabling social behavior. Many elasmobranch species communicate via body and fin postures, but it is not yet known if or how mobulid...

Young animals, especially those developing within eggs, are extremely vulnerable to predation risk given their immobility, small size and limited functionality of developing sensory systems. Embryos from a range of taxa can detect predator cues and use antipredator responses to reduce risk; however, little is known about this capacity in elasmobran...

Humans interact with fishes in many contexts including aquaculture, scientific study and companion animals. In all of these contexts, fish welfare can be compromised through anthropogenic means. Concern for fish welfare has grown considerably in recent years, with many states and territories now protecting fish through animal welfare regulations. W...

Tourism-related feeding of wildlife can result in detrimental, human-induced changes to the spatial distribution, social behaviour and health of target species. The feeding of sharks as part of shark-viewing activities has become increasingly popular in recent years to ensure reliable and consistent encounters. A common limitation in determining ho...

Movement ecology has traditionally focused on the movements of animals over large time scales, but, with advancements in sensor technology, the focus can become increasingly fine scale. Accelerometers are commonly applied to quantify animal behaviours and can elucidate fine-scale (<2 s) behaviours. Machine learning methods are commonly applied to a...

Fish welfare in aquaculture – problems and approaches to solutions. Free download: http://www.ign-nutztierhaltung.ch/sites/default/files/Bilder/IGN_FOKUS20_Broschuere_Fischwohl_100Seiter_web.pdf (The English edition will be available in late spring 2021.)

Many species with broad distributions are exposed to different thermal regimes which often select for varied phenotypes. This intraspecific variation is often overlooked but may be critical in dictating the vulnerability of different populations to environmental change. We reared Port Jackson shark (Heterodontus portusjacksoni) eggs from two therma...

In “The Great Fish Pain Debate” (Issues, Summer 2010), Troy Vettese, Becca Franks, and Jennifer Jacquet rightly state that in Germany the assumption that fish feel pain resulted in court cases and fishing-related legislation from the 1980s onward. The initial focus was on fishing competitions, which were ruled as unjustifiable because their primary...

The development of adaptive responses to novel situations via learning has been demonstrated in a wide variety of animal taxa. However, knowledge on the learning abilities of one of the oldest extant vertebrate groups, Chondrichthyes, remains limited. With the increasing interest in global wildlife tourism and shark feeding operations, it is import...

In the original publication of the article, the Fig. 4 was erroneously published.

Behavioural lateralization, the asymmetric expression of cognitive functions, is reported to enhance key fitness-relevant traits such as group coordination, multitasking and predator escape. Therefore, studies reporting negative effects on lateralization in fish due to environmental stressors such as ocean acidification, hypoxia and pollutants are...

Resource partitioning facilitates the coexistence of sympatric species through spatial, temporal and/or trophic strategies. Fishes living in the intertidal zone demonstrate highly adaptive plastic behaviour, including resource partitioning, through spatial and temporal shifts in diet and microhabitat. Although intertidal fish assemblages are influe...

Globally, freshwater fishes are declining at an alarming rate. Despite much evidence of catastrophic declines, few Australian species are listed as threatened under national legislation. We aim to help redress this by identifying the Australian freshwater fishes that are in the most immediate risk of extinction. For 22 freshwater fishes (identified...

Spatial learning is an important cognitive function found across a multitude of species. Natural selection can enhance specific cognitive abilities depending on species ecology but, under certain conditions, spatial learning is also known to vary between sexes according to reproductive status. Despite abundant studies on spatial learning across ani...

Fish models are increasingly used in a wide variety of experimental contexts and their adoption is growing globally. This chapter reviews the evidence for sentience and cognitive abilities in fishes to highlight the growing empirical evidence of the mental capacities of fish. The definition of sentience is presented along with the scientific data p...

Scientists have built a significant body of research that shows that fishes display all the features commonly associated with intelligence in mammals, and that they experience stress, fear and pain. These findings have significant ramifications for animal welfare legislation, an area from which fishes have been traditionally excluded. Our most detr...

In a range of fish species, offspring sustainability is much dependent to their mother's investment into the egg yolk. A healthy environment helps broodfish to produce normal quality offspring. However, deviation from optimal conditions can disturb body functions that effect the next generation. Here, zebrafish (Danio rerio) was employed to investi...

Social learning can be a shortcut for acquiring locally adaptive information. Animals that live in social groups have better access to social information, but gregarious and nonsocial species are also frequently exposed to social cues. Thus, social learning might simply reflect an animal's general ability to learn rather than an adaptation to socia...

Siamese fighting fish (Betta splendens) has been extensively exploited in the behavioral and physiological toxicology studies of drugs. Tacrolimus is an immunosuppressant drug largely used in liver and renal transplantations. Here we found that a 7-day exposure of male B. splendens to concentrations of 0.05 and 0.1 µg/mL Prograf® (tacrolimus) cause...

Raw data and Summary sheet for the publication: "Friend or foe? Development of odour detection, differentiation, and anti-predator response in an embryonic elasmobranch, Heterodontus portusjacksoni"

Technologies for remotely observing animal movements have advanced rapidly in the past decade. In recent years, Australia has invested in an Integrated Marine Ocean Tracking (IMOS) system, a land ecosystem observatory (TERN), and an Australian Acoustic Observatory (A2O), but has not established movement tracking systems for individual terrestrial a...

Understanding how individual behavior shapes the structure and ecology of populations is key to species conservation and management. Like many elasmobranchs, manta rays are highly mobile and wide-ranging species threatened by anthropogenic impacts. In shallow water environments, these pelagic rays often form groups and perform several apparently so...

Abstract Distinguishing the factors that influence activity within a species advances understanding of their behavior and ecology. Continuous observation in the marine environment is not feasible but biotelemetry devices provide an opportunity for detailed analysis of movements and activity patterns. This study investigated the detail that calibrat...

Ocean warming can induce physiological and behavioural effects in marine predators that can cascade through ecosystems. A lack of understanding of the effects of elevated temperature on shark behaviour remains an impediment to forecasting ecosystem-wide impacts. Port Jackson shark eggs were incubated and reared at current and projected end-of-centu...

This study investigated whether captive‐reared juvenile Port Jackson sharks Heterodontus portusjacksoni choose to aggregate and if familiarity is one of the mechanisms driving social preference. In a controlled binary‐choice experiment, juvenile sharks were given the option to associate or not with unfamiliar conspecifics, or to associate or not wi...

A large number of studies showed that fish possess numerical abilities similar to those reported in mammals and birds. However, inter-individual differences in numerical performance are repeatedly found with different types of stimuli and methodological approaches. A recent study on guppies, Poecilia reticulata, suggested that strongly lateralized...

The PREPRINT is publicly available here: https://doi.org/10.32942/osf.io/6kcwa ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ABSTRACT: Behavioural lateralisation, defined as the asymmetric expression of cognitive functions, is reported to enhance...

Restricted gene flow and reproductive philopatry are increasingly being described in marine predators such as sharks. However, observing shark reproductive behaviour in situ is problematic because of issues associated with sampling in the marine environment. As such, molecular tools have become fundamental to unravelling complex mating behaviours....

Hybridisation and introgression are natural phenomena that may lead to the transfer of adaptive alleles from one species to another and increased species diversity. At the same time, hybridisation and subsequent introgression threaten many species world‐wide through the loss of genetic and species diversity. In Australia, introgressive hybridisatio...

Behavioural plasticity is an advantageous trait for animals living in dynamic environments, and can be induced through learning. While some behavioural traits are innate, others are framed by experience and learning during an individual’s lifetime. Many studies have investigated cognitive abilities in fish species from contrasting environments, but...

Goldfish are members of the cyprinid family. Goldfish were originally kept in China at least 2000 years ago, where they were primarily raised as food fish. Goldfish are generalist omnivores and eat a range of food varieties, from insects to plants. All goldfish need adequate space for shoaling, keeping adequate distances between individuals, mainta...

The majority of commentaries are supportive of our position on the scepticism that muddies the waters surrounding fish pain and sentience. There is substantial empirical evidence for pain in fish. Animals' experience of pain cannot be compared to artificial intelligence (AI) because AI can only mimic responses to nociceptive input on the basis of h...

Establishing behavioural repeatability is important in animal personality research; however, a range of factors can influence repeatability. Experimental design, particularly acclimation time, is important in managing a subject’s stress prior to the onset of behavioural observations. Acclimatisation also ensures we capture “normal” behaviour and pr...

Fish represent the largest radiation of vertebrates, with over 32,000 species known to date – more than all other vertebrate species combined. While fish possess many anatomical and perceptual adaptations to the aquatic environment, most experimental procedures used to study cognition in other species are readily adaptable to fish. Their small size...

Food provisioning can have significant effects on marine wildlife. It is common practice for recreational anglers to discard fish waste back into waterways, yet the effects of incidental provisioning as a result of recreational fish cleaning on marine wildlife have not been assessed and are likely not being considered in fisheries management. At th...

The marine environment is filled with biotic and abiotic sounds. Some of these sounds predict important events that influence fitness while others are unimportant. Individuals can learn specific sound cues and ‘soundscapes’ and use them for vital activities such as foraging, predator avoidance, communication and orientation. Most research with soun...