Kapakos, Yiannis http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6677-643X
Leris, Ioannis
Karakatsouli, Nafsika
Kalogianni, Eleni
Article History
Received: 28 August 2023
Accepted: 14 January 2024
First Online: 7 March 2024
Declarations
:
: The authors declare they have no conflict of interest.
: All experimental procedures were conducted according to the Greek law and conform to ASAB ethical guidelines. HCMR had secured all necessary permits for fish collection from the Greek Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change (permit 9ZE24653Π-ΖΟ6, HCMR Research Ethics Committee under development during the implementation of this work and thus no specific licence to conduct the experiment was required). We conducted pilot tests before the main experiment to fine-tune the setup and procedure. During these tests, the observed level of aggression between the two species was not severe. In the main experiment, we used a long acclimation period (60 min) prior to each trial, and placed gravel on the bottom of the test tank, to reduce stress for both subjects. The experimenter was operating behind an opaque cover, and observed the trials remotely through a camera, to minimize disturbance. After each trial, used fish were placed in a separate compartment in their home tank for monitoring of their health and recovery. We did not observe any bleeding or scale loss during or after the trials, only minor fin damage was visible in some cases. Should there have been cases of severe aggression, the subjects would have been immediately separated using a stick (which was used to separate and guide them into their respective compartment at the end of each stage), and then returned to the used compartment of their housing tank for monitoring. After the conclusion of the experiments, no mortalities or other adverse effects were observed on the subjects, which were maintained in HCMR facilities for breeding purposes and future experimental use.