Document Type
Honors Thesis
Abstract
Large organismal size allows for fish to act in a mobile, predatory manner by opening them up to the possibility of foraging in distinct trophic levels. This may allow for ecosystem stabilization. However, the environmental pressures that select for large and mobile organisms to act in this way have not been identified. Given that this is most likely a behavioral trait, it has been hypothesized that an increased cognitive ability, marked by a larger brain size, would be required by predators to occupy the upper trophic levels of ecosystems. By expanding on food web theory through microscopic analysis, it has been found that fish brain size positively correlates with an increased ability to forage across trophic positions in a food web; thereby indicating that larger brains allow for enhanced cognitive capacity to exploit new feeding niches.
Publication Date
5-1-2021
Language
English
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Joseph, Joshua, "TESTING THE LINK BETWEEN BRAIN SIZE AND TROPHIC POSITION IN FISH" (2021). 2021 Spring Honors Capstone Projects. 51.
https://mavmatrix.uta.edu/honors_spring2021/51