:: Research interests

- Behaviour and welfare of wild animals in captivity
- Environmental enrichment and behavioural rehabilitation of wild animals
- Animal welfare assessment
- Animal cognition

:: Current research project

Welfare in teleosts: behavioural, cognitive and physiological aspects

Fish are an important resource, being used in multiple contexts. Their use has been raising welfare questions, related to the health, suffering and natural history. Despite the fact that legislation includes fish, very little is known in this area, for which priority areas of research have been recently highlighted.

This project aims to identify behavioural and physiological indicators of welfare in fish, through the comparative analysis of behaviour and cortisol response in the presence and absence of certain social and environmental (substrate) resources, and through related motivational studies. It also intends to understand the effect of three factors modulating the response to stressors: social environment, previsibility and relative intensity. Teleosts of the species Oreochromis mossambicus will be used, since they are well known, robust, easy to keep and breed, and economically relevant. The species Sarotherodon galileus will be used occasionally to evaluate specific needs of monogamous species forming stable pairs.

Funded by: FCT - SFRH/BD/16162/2004

:: Selected publications
Galhardo, L., Almeida, O.& Oliveira, R.F. 2011. Measuring motivation in a cichlid fish: An adaptation of the push-door paradigm. Applied Animal Behaviour Science. 130: 60-70

Galhardo, L., Vital, J. & Oliveira, R.F. 2011. The role of predictability in the stress response of a cichlid fish. Physiology and Behavior. 102: 367-372

Galhardo, L., Almeida, O. & Oliveira, R.F. 2009. Preference for the presence of substrate in male cichlid fish: effects of social dominance and context. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 120: 224-230.

Galhardo, L. & R.F. Oliveira. 2009. Psychological stress and welfare in fish. Annual Review of Biomedical Sciences 11: 1-20.