Six common behavioral trials and their relevance for perch performance in natural lakes.

Behavioral traits measured in laboratory settings are commonly used when predicting ecological effects and evolutionary outcomes in natural systems. However, uncertainties regarding the relevance of simplified lab-based behavioral tests for complex natural environments have created doubts about the use of these tests within aquatic ecology and ecotoxicology. In this study, we scrutinize the assumption that fish performance in six commonly applied behavioral assays has relevance for in situ behavior, by comparing individual behavior tracked in both artificial laboratory settings as well as in two natural lakes. We show that: i) commonly measured behavioral traits of individual fish (Perca fluviatilis) have low predictive power for within-lake behaviors if interpreted alone, but that; ii) composite variables synthesized from several (six) behavioral assays explain important in situ measures such as swimming activity, dispersion, home-range size, and habitat preference. While our findings support recent criticisms against the use of single behavioral tests for predicting environmental effects, we provide empirical evidences suggesting that fish performances in multiple laboratory assays are highly relevant for fish behavior in nature.

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Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.