Fish avoid visually noisy environments where prey targeting is reduced

The environment contains different forms of ecological no­­­ise that can reduce the ability of animals to detect information. Here we ask whether animals adapt their behaviour to either exploit or avoid areas of their environment with increased dynamic visual noise. Three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) were immersed into environments with a simulated form of naturally occurring visual noise – moving light bands that form on underwater substrates caused by the refraction of light through surface waves. We tested whether this form of visual noise affected fish’s habitat selection, movements, and prey-targeting behaviour. Fish avoided areas of the environment with increased visual noise, and achieved this by increasing their activity as a function of the locally perceived noise level. Fish were less likely to respond to virtual prey in environments with increased visual noise, highlighting a potential impact that visual noise has on their perceptual abilities. Fish did not in...本实验环境包含多种形式的生态噪声（ecological noise），此类噪声会削弱动物侦测信息的能力。本研究旨在探究动物是否会调整自身行为，以利用或规避环境中动态视觉噪声增强的区域。本研究以三刺棘鱼（Gasterosteus aculeatus）为实验对象，将其置于模拟自然产生的视觉噪声环境中——该噪声为光线经水面波浪折射后，在水下基底形成的移动光带。我们验证了这类视觉噪声是否会影响鱼类的栖息地选择、运动行为以及猎物靶向行为。实验结果表明，鱼类会主动规避视觉噪声增强的环境区域，且其活动强度随局部感知到的噪声水平提升而增强，以此达成规避目的。在视觉噪声增强的环境中，鱼类对虚拟猎物的响应概率显著降低，这凸显出视觉噪声可能对其感知能力产生潜在影响。鱼类未在……