Figure 2.

Seasonal changes of feeding behaviors and food intake in goldfish during the transition from summer to winter. (A) Seasonal changes of complete feeding/surface foraging, incomplete feeding/food spitting and bottom feeding/bottom foraging during the transition from the summer (Jul–Aug, 2016), autumn (Sep–Oct, 2016), early-mid phase of the winter (Nov–Dec, 2016) to the peak phase of the winter (Jan–Feb, 2017). (B) Seasonal change of food consumption related to the temperature drop in the environment during the same period. (C) Positive correlation of the gradual decline in food intake observed during the transition from summer to winter months as shown in (B) with the parallel drop in water temperature as revealed by Pearson product-moment regression analysis. Data presented, including feeding behaviors, food consumption and water temperature are expressed as mean ± SEM (n = 14–16). Feeding behaviors were scored over a period of 2 h and the data of feeding counts obtained during the summer, autumn and early-mid phase of the winter were compared with the corresponding data of the same time point from the group scored during the peak phase of the winter using Student's t-test. For food intake occurred during the same period, the data for food consumption from different groups were analyzed by one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey post-hoc test. Differences between treatment groups were considered as significant at p < 0.05.