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. WWe 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. .

蓝带羊鱼（Bluelined goatfish, Upeneichthys lineatus）会快速将体色从白色横纹模式转变为视觉上更为醒目的垂直红纹模式，该行为常出现于觅食过程中。鉴于该体色模式对多种观测对象而言都具有显著的醒目性，这种体色变化不太可能用于伪装，反而可能用于通讯/信号传递。羊鱼通常会主导多物种聚群，因此它们有可能利用这种体色变化作为觅食成功信号，以促进群体合作、提升食物获取效率，并通过“数量安全”策略降低被捕食风险。
本研究采用创新实验方法，部署了三种不同体色形态的3D羊鱼模型——无横纹纯白型、黑色垂直横纹型、红色垂直横纹型——以探究红色体色是否为该信号的关键组成部分，抑或是仅垂直横纹模式（无论体色如何）可被鱼类作为觅食成功的指示信号。
我们将搭载水下视频装置（Remote Underwater Video, RUVs）的3D羊鱼模型分为三种体色变体：红白垂直纹模型、黑白垂直纹模型以及无横纹纯白模型，以此考察不同模型周边的鱼类行为与互动差异。水下视频装置被随机部署在新南威尔士州东海岸的14个采样点。
本数据集包含两个工作表：1）不同体色模型周边同种或异种鱼类的丰度与行为数据；2）同种鱼类及伴生异种鱼类在各体色形态模型周边的总停留时长（视野内时长，Time-in-view, TiV）。