Fish behavior can be divided into three basic areas of motivation: food, safety and breeding. As a response to such stimuli, they may display various behaviors.

For a school of fish to qualify as such, they must demonstrate complex synchronized swimming techniques – moving in the same direction at equal speed, turning together, etc. This feat can be quite difficult and is rarely achievable.

Habitat

Habitat of an animal refers to their living space. For fish, this typically means water and its surroundings as their home. Within their habitat lies all they require for survival – food, shelter and space.

Habitats may take the form of large areas like sand dunes, small bodies of water such as rivers or ponds, coral reefs and oceans – or they could even be zoo exhibits.

Researching the relationship between animals and their environments can be complex, taking into account multiple factors like morphology and physiology, social behaviors and predator-prey interactions as well as environmental changes affecting animal responses to those changes – for instance, when a zoo changes its exhibits it can have an effect on animal behavior; moving their sharks into an aquarium that offers more natural conditions may make them behave differently than they did previously.

Food

Fishes feed on various things depending on their species and ecosystem in which they reside. Fish can generally be divided into three categories based on what they eat: carnivorous, herbivorous or omnivorous.

Fish exhibit a range of behaviors to find and consume their food sources, from hunting actively, waiting in wait, or scavenging for leftovers. Fish also use camouflage techniques as protection from predators: by merging into their surroundings seamlessly.

Coral reef scavenger fishes often utilize structural features like logs, holes, or undercut banks to seek shelter from currents or ambush prey. Other fish that inhabit slower-moving streams use burrowing behaviors as shelters in sand, rubble, or mud.

Fishes recognize each other through chemical substances called pheromones that they emit through scent or taste receptors on their bodies, known as pheromones. This recognition serves as an important marker of social dominance and territorial interactions; fish also use this chemical signaling system to communicate with their offspring as well as signal aggression towards conspecifics or other fishes.

Predators

Fish can either actively pursue food sources or wait for it to come to them, depending on their diets. Carnivorous species eat other fish or invertebrates like shrimp and worms; while herbivorous ones primarily feed on algae and plants; though some invertebrate feeders such as insects may also consume herbivorous species like moray eels (family Muraenidae) may display dominant male/subordinate female relationships while some bony fish like groupers (family Serranidae) have complex hierarchies of leadership between leaders/followers and followership relationships within social structures such as families where males dominate male/subordinate female relationships while groupers (family Serranidae) prefer social group environments where complex hierarchies exist between male/subordinate relationships between male/male/subordinate females.

Behavioral ecologists have discovered that predator risk can influence how animal groups move together. For instance, in experiments where shoals of sulfur mollies gathered to avoid hypoxia pulsated their bodies up and down in waves to deter predators like predatory birds from attacking. Yet this repetitive behavior eventually boredom set in.

Social Behavior

Fishes use sight, sound, smell and touch to perceive their environment. While some species with large eyes hunt and feed primarily using sight alone, others rely heavily on sense of smell (catfishes and minnows) or special sensors which detect currents that generate electric fields (poyciliids).

Fish social behavior includes mating and courtship, schooling/shoaling patterns, aggressive interactions among species to establish dominance hierarchies or defend territory, as well as mating/courtship dynamics between males of different species that involve mating/courtship behaviors that vary with species. Such interactions involve behavioral, genetic, neural/brain gene control mechanisms that vary among fish species.

Fish behaviors are driven primarily by avoiding predation. Fishes who detect fewer prey in open areas will move deeper water or vegetation for protection, or signal predators by flashing warning colorations or movements that mimic attackers. Some fish even possess third-party recognition abilities allowing them to remember past cooperators or competitors by remembering specific characteristics about them; research on cichlids has revealed males store urine to broadcast their dominance rank; this causes rivals to reduce aggression when exposed to these pheromones.https://www.youtube.com/embed/kn-r5JIhFyQ