A fish can change its stripes: investigating the role of body colour and pattern in the bluelined goatfish

Bluelined goatfish (Upeneichthys lineatus) rapidly change their body colour from a white horizontally banded pattern to a seemingly more conspicuous vertically banded red pattern, often when foraging. Given the apparent conspicuousness of the pattern to a range of observers, it seems unlikely that this colour change is used for camouflage and instead may be used for communication/signalling. Goatfish often drive multispecies associations, and it is possible that goatfish use this colour change as a foraging success signal to facilitate cooperation, increase food acquisition, and reduced predation risk through a ‘safety in numbers’ strategy. Using a novel approach, we deployed 3D model goatfish in different colour morphs—white no bands, black vertical bands, red vertical bands—to determine whether the red colouration is an important component of the signal or if it is only the vertical banding pattern, regardless of colour, that fish respond to as an indicator of foraging success. W
We deployed Remove Underwater Video (RUVS) attached to 3D model goatfish in three different colour morphs; a red and white vertically banded model, a black and white vertically banded model and a plain white model with no banding to examine differences in fish behaviour and interactions in proximity to the different model variants. The RUVs were randomly deployed at 14 sites along the east coast of New South Wales. 
This dataset contains two sheets; 1) abundance and behaviour of individual conspecific or heterospecific fishes around the different colour models; and 2) the total time spent (time-in-view; TiV) by conspecifics and associated heterospecific fish around each colour morph. .

蓝线鲷（Upeneichthys lineatus）在觅食时，其体色会迅速从白色横向条纹图案转变为一种更显眼的垂直条纹红色图案。鉴于该图案对众多观察者而言的显著可见性，这种体色变化似乎并非用于伪装，而是可能用于交流/信号传递。鲷鱼常驱使多物种群体，有可能鲷鱼利用这种体色变化作为觅食成功的信号，以促进合作、增加食物获取量并降低捕食风险，通过‘群体优势’策略。采用新颖的方法，我们在不同颜色形态的3D模型鲷鱼上部署了水下视频监控系统（RUVS），包括白色无条纹、黑色垂直条纹和红色垂直条纹的模型，以确定红色条纹是否是信号的重要组成部分，或者鱼类是否只对垂直条纹图案做出反应，无论颜色如何，都将之视为觅食成功的指标。我们部署了RUVS监控系统，将其附着在不同的颜色形态的3D模型鲷鱼上；包括红色和白色垂直条纹模型、黑色和白色垂直条纹模型以及无条纹的纯白色模型，以观察鱼类在靠近不同模型变体时的行为和互动差异。RUVs监控系统在澳大利亚新南威尔士州东海岸的14个地点随机部署。该数据集包含两个表格；1）不同颜色模型周围同种或异种鱼类的丰富度和行为；2）同种和关联异种鱼类在每种颜色形态周围花费的总时间（视野内时间；TiV）。