Sea urchin harvesting has rapidly expanded in the last decades. Since many sea urchin species play important ecological role, large-scale commercial sea urchin fisheries can have complex effects on benthic communities. In many temperate regions, overharvesting has compromised marine ecosystems to such an extent that reintroduction of sea urchins raised in captivity may be a valid solution for the enhancement of depleted marine wild populations. In some regions of the Mediterranean Sea, improving the growth efficiency of captive sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus to be reintroduced has become a widespread practice. However, no study has yet considered the potential behavioural effects of raising sea urchins in captivity when they are introduced in the natural environment. This study provides information about the behavioural effects of captivity on P. lividus in terms of locomotion performance, a trait that can be fundamental for responding to predators and for relocation after environmental disturbances such as currents and waves. Movements of captive-born and wild sea urchins were video-recorded and compared in (i) total exposure to external cues, (ii) partial exposure to external cues and (iii) absence of external cues. Latency of locomotion, average speed and average velocity of sea urchins showed significant differences with respect to the level of exposure and their origin (i.e. wild vs. captive-born). Our results demonstrate that captive-born sea urchins in the wild showed long latency and slower locomotor performance when compared to wild sea urchins. Conversely, the straightness-of-path and locomotion direction of captive-born and wild sea urchins were similar in natural settings. Our results therefore suggest that captive-born sea urchins suffer the negative effects of captivity when introduced in a natural environment. Understanding the factors that decrease the performance of sea urchin will be important for developing procedures aimed at minimizing the negative effect of captivity before release into the wild.

中文翻译：

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回到野外：圈养海胆的行为影响。

在过去的几十年中，海胆的收获迅速扩大。由于许多海胆物种起着重要的生态作用，因此大规模的商业海胆渔业会对底栖生物产生复杂的影响。在许多温带地区，过度捕捞已经破坏了海洋生态系统，以至于重新引入圈养的海胆可能是增加海洋野生种群数量的有效方法。在地中海的某些地区，提高圈养海胆Paracentrotus lividus的生长效率重新引入已经成为一种普遍的做法。但是，尚未有研究考虑将圈养在自然环境中的海胆圈养的潜在行为影响。这项研究提供了有关圈养对青紫假单胞菌的行为影响的信息就运动表现而言，这是对掠食者做出反应以及在受到水流和波浪等环境干扰后重新定位的基本特征。录制了圈养出生的海胆和野生海胆的运动，并在（i）完全暴露于外部线索，（ii）部分暴露于外部线索和（iii）没有外部线索的情况下进行了比较。海胆的运动潜伏期，平均速度和平均速度在暴露水平及其来源方面（即野生与圈养）表现出显着差异。我们的结果表明，与野生海胆相比，野生圈养的海胆表现出较长的潜伏期和较慢的运动能力。相反，圈养出生的海胆和野生海胆在自然环境中的直线度和运动方向相似。因此，我们的结果表明，圈养出生的海胆在自然环境中引入时会遭受圈养的负面影响。了解降低海胆性能的因素对于开发旨在减少释放到野外的人工饲养的负面影响的程序非常重要。