Risky bait: capture experience alters feeding mode toward angling gear in red sea bream

Abstract

When food resources provide reward while simultaneously imposing risk, animals can regulate their behaviour to continue exploiting them while reducing associated costs. Angling presents such a feeding situation, in which obtaining bait can result in hooking and capture. Although fish become less vulnerable to angling following capture experience, the behavioural changes underlying this reduced vulnerability remain poorly understood. Here, we used fine-scale video observations to examine feeding behaviour of red sea bream (Pagrus major) toward angling gear before and after capture experience. Naive fish rapidly swallowed the bait and were subsequently captured, whereas capture-experienced fish continued to approach and feed on the gear but shifted from swallowing to biting. This feeding-mode shift may allow fish to maintain exploitation of the bait while reducing capture risk. Our observations provide a behavioural explanation for reduced angling vulnerability and suggest that direct experience with capture risk can alter how fish exploit a rewarding food resource.