Formation of the “Bobber Upthrust Response” for Food-Obtaining in Bluegill Sunfish Lepomis macrochirus

Abstract

Four bluegill sunfish were trained by the operant conditioning technique to activate an automatic feeder by nudging the bobber upwards in order to be provided with a food pellet. This conditioning was completed in 40 to 45 days for three of the fish but required about 105 days for the last remaining fish. Due to the extremely low reaction dishplayed by the fish towards the bobber, the fish had to be trained to respond to the feeding tube namely, by nudging or poking at it and it was only after this that the fish were seen to respond easily to the bobber.
The frequency at which the bobber was found to be nudged upwards was much lower when compared to that for the feeding tube; the former frequency ranged from 0.5 to 0.7 times/min while the latter ranged from 3.7 to 5.9 times/min.