Naomi Pleizier is back in the field at the Cape Eleuthera Institute, in the Bahamas, to follow up on her findings about personality and stress in checkered pufferfish (Sphoeroides testudineus). Checkered puffers are ubiquitous in mangrove ecosystems ranging from Florida to Brazil, braving the ever-changing conditions of this threatened habitat. The species’ abundance, resilience, and unique form of predator avoidance make it an interesting subject for the study of stress, personality, and the impacts of displacement.
From the results of her last trip, Naomi discovered that some behaviours of pufferfish, including the duration of the “puff”, were consistent in individuals through time, qualifying them as measures of animal personality. During the current trip, she is exploring whether these behaviours are also consistent when fish are tested in a natural enclosure. Furthermore, with help from the CEI flats team and Carleton student Jennifer Magel, Naomi is conducting a displacement study to determine whether puffers with different personalities return at different rates to the creek from which they were captured. As an extension of previous work on pufferfish and the effects of cortisol, she will also be assessing the effect of a cortisol dose on their immune function.
