Tilapia

An adaptable, user-friendly score sheet to monitor welfare in experimental fish

Fish are increasingly used as experimental animals across research fields. Currently, around a quarter of all experimental animals used are fish. Less than 20% of these are standard model species. Welfare assessments for experimental fish are in their infancy compared...

Year Published: 2025Topics: Welfare AssessmentAnimal Type: Fish, Other Fish, Salmon, Shark & Ray, Tilapia, Trout, Zebrafish

Citation: Flueck-Giraud, M., Schmidt-Posthaus, H., Bergadano, A. et al. 2025. An adaptable, user-friendly score sheet to monitor welfare in experimental fish. Laboratory Animals 59(2), 226–241.

Shelter or complexity? Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) preference for enrichment structures is a matter of time and frequency of visits

Assessing fish preferences for resources may be an interesting approach to select environmental enrichments to improve their welfare. However, different operational variables may end up indicating distinct preferences. Here we investigated whether Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) express different preferences for...

Year Published: 2025Topics: Environmental EnrichmentAnimal Type: Fish, Tilapia

Citation: Maia, C. M., Montalt, A. V., Arechavala-Lopez, P. et al. 2025. Shelter or complexity? Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) preference for enrichment structures is a matter of time and frequency of visits. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 283, 106498.

The welfare of farmed Nile tilapia: A review (2025)

Nile tilapia are, by absolute number of individuals, the most farmed species of fish today, yet we know little about how common husbandry practices impact their welfare. Despite their global importance, there is a notable lack of detailed, species-specific welfare...

Year Published: 2025Topics: Handling, Housing, Husbandry & Management, Stocking DensityAnimal Type: Fish, Tilapia

Citation: Emam, W., Lambert, H., Brown, C. 2025. The welfare of farmed Nile tilapia: A review. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 12.

Fish intelligence, sentience and ethics

Fish are one of the most highly utilised vertebrate taxa by humans; they are harvested from wild stocks as part of global fishing industries, grown under intensive aquaculture conditions, are the most common pet and are widely used for scientific...

Year Published: 2015Topics: Emotion, Pain, & Sentience, Regulations & Ethical ReviewAnimal Type: Fish, Other Fish, Salmon, Shark & Ray, Tilapia, Trout, Zebrafish

Citation: Brown, C. 2015. Fish intelligence, sentience and ethics. Animal Cognition 18(1), 1–17.

Social buffering of the stress response: Insights from fishes

Social buffering of stress refers to the effect of a social partner in reducing the cortisol or corticosterone response to a stressor. It has been well studied in mammals, particularly those that form pair bonds. Recent studies on fishes suggest...

Year Published: 2022Topics: Emotion, Pain, & Sentience, Social Housing & CompanionshipAnimal Type: Fish, Other Fish, Salmon, Shark & Ray, Tilapia, Trout, Zebrafish

Citation: Gilmour, K. M., Bard, B. 2022. Social buffering of the stress response: Insights from fishes. Biology Letters 18(10), 20220332.

Body tactile stimulation reduces the effects of high stocking density on the welfare of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus)

High stocking density is used in aquaculture to optimize farming. However, such strategies can stress territorial fish by increasing aggression, thus harming the fish welfare and productive performance. Here, we tested the effect of long-term tactile body stimulation (TS) on...

Year Published: 2023Topics: Environmental Enrichment, Stocking DensityAnimal Type: Fish, Tilapia

Citation: Gauy, A. C. dos S., Bolognesi, M. C., Gonçalves-de-Freitas, E. 2023. Body tactile stimulation reduces the effects of high stocking density on the welfare of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus). Fishes 8(6), 320.

Looking beyond the shoal: Fish welfare as an individual attribute

Welfare is an individual attribute. In general, providing captive nonhuman animals with conditions conducive to good welfare is an idea more easily applied when dealing with few individuals. However, this becomes much harder—if not impossible—under farming conditions that may imply...

Year Published: 2022Topics: PersonalityAnimal Type: Fish, Other Fish, Salmon, Tilapia, Trout, Zebrafish

Citation: Torgerson-White, L., Sánchez-Suárez, W. 2022. Looking beyond the shoal: Fish welfare as an individual attribute. Animals 12(19), 2592.

The effect of substrate on water quality in ornamental fish tanks

Almost all home aquaria contain substrate, either as intentional enrichment or for aesthetic purposes. For fishes, benefits of structural enrichment have been well considered, particularly in research and aquaculture settings. However, our understanding of the impacts of tank substrate as...

Year Published: 2022Topics: Husbandry & ManagementAnimal Type: Fish, Other Fish, Salmon, Tilapia, Trout, Zebrafish

Citation: Vanderzwalmen, M., Sánchez Lacalle, D., Tamilselvan, P. et al. 2022. The effect of substrate on water quality in ornamental fish tanks. Animals 12(19), 2679.

Finding the “golden stocking density”: A balance between fish welfare and farmers’ perspectives

The effects of stocking density on fish welfare are complex and involve many interacting parameters. This complex relationship between fish welfare, stocking density and influencing factors make it challenging to define a specific optimal (“golden”) stocking density. Indeed, previously published...

Year Published: 2022Topics: Stocking DensityAnimal Type: Fish, Other Fish, Salmon, Tilapia, Trout, Zebrafish

Citation: Saraiva, J. L., Rachinas-Lopes, P., Arechavala-Lopez, P. 2022. Finding the “golden stocking density”: A balance between fish welfare and farmers' perspectives. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 9, 930221.

Exploiting animal personality to reduce chronic stress in captive fish populations

Chronic stress is a major source of welfare problems in many captive populations, including fishes. While we have long known that chronic stress effects arise from maladaptive expression of acute stress response pathways, predicting where and when problems will arise...

Year Published: 2022Topics: PersonalityAnimal Type: Fish, Other Fish, Salmon, Tilapia, Trout, Zebrafish

Citation: Prentice, P. M., Houslay, T. M., Wilson, A. J. 2022. Exploiting animal personality to reduce chronic stress in captive fish populations. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 9, 1046205.