Public information use – are invasive demersal fish species more effective than natives?

Organisms determine environmental quality using their senses and personal experience (personal information), but can also use by-products of other individuals’ activities, i.e. public information. The ability to use public information originating from both con- and heterospecifics gives an advantage over individuals relying only on personal information or conspecific cues. The role of public information in invasion ecology is of high concern, as any differences in this aspect between alien and native species may determine the success of the former. Here we used two pairs of sympatric invasive and native demersal fish species (racer goby Babka gymnotrachelus / European bullhead Cottus gobio; monkey goby Neogobius fluviatilis / gudgeon Gobio gobio) facing two types of public cues (associated with frightened and foraging individuals) as a model to check if the invaders are more effective in public information use than the natives. Both invaders and the native gudgeon used danger cues from ..., Uploaded data present the behavior of fish during the experiment assessing effectiveness in social information use. Test fish behavior was recorded, and, to minimize observer bias, we used the Ethovision XT® 10.1 program to analyze it from the videos recorded.
Experimental setup:
We used LCD computer monitors to present the visual cues to the fish tested. The cues were prepared by recording particular behavior of demonstrators' individuals (antipredator behavior or foraging) and presenting them to the tested fish individual. The experimental setup consisted of a glass experimental tank (30 x 30 x 30 cm; length x width x height), with two computer monitors (BenQ GW2280-B, Taipei) placed on two opposite sides of the tank to display the stimulus videos (one monitor was to display visual cue, second one acted as a control). An IP camera (Samsung SNB-6004P, Changwon, South Korea) was placed 50 cm above the water surface to record the fish behavior.
Behavior analysis:
For Experiment 1 (antipr..., , # Public information use – are invasive demersal fish species more effective than natives?

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.vmcvdnd14](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.vmcvdnd14)

## Description of the data and file structure

The main idea of the experiment:

Our study aimed to investigate the ability of invasive fish to use public information. We tested fish arranged in two sets of species consisting of a co-existing invasive vs. native species: (1) racer goby *Babka gymnotrachelus* vs European bullhead *Cottus gobio*, (2) monkey goby *Neogobius fluviatilis* vs gudgeon *Gobio gobio.* We were interested in how the invaders integrate into freshwater communities in terms of exchanging (i.e., using and providing) information with native heterospecifics. In the first experiment, we checked if fish can recognize danger based on public information cues (antipredatory behavior) from con- and heterospecifics within each set of species. If so, we expected the test fish to avoid the area near the cu...