Effects of multiple stressors on fish shoal collective motion are independent and vary with shoaling metric
Collective movement is critical to the survival of some animals. Despite substantial progress in understanding animal collectives such as fish shoals and bird flocks, it is unknown how collective behaviour is affected by changes in multiple environmental conditions that can interact as stressors. Using a fully factorial repeated-measures design, we tested the independent and combined […]
Environmental enrichment enhances spatial cognition in rats by reducing thigmotaxis (wall hugging) during testing
Rats, Rattus norvegicus, housed with [`]environmental enrichment’ do better in tests of spatial cognition than rats housed in barren cages. The leading hypothesis is that exposure to [`]social and inanimate complexity’ leads to better cognitive-processing abilities, which directly enhances performance in a spatial task. However, enrichment is associated with reduced stress responses and anxiety in […]
Sex differences, or not, in spatial cognition in albino rats: acute stress is the key
Male rats, Rattus norvegicus, typically outperform females in tests of spatial cognition. However, as stress affects cognition differently in the two sexes, performance differences may be an artefact of stress. Rats face at least two sources of stress during an experiment: the test situation (acute) and housing conditions (chronic, e.g. isolation). We used a task […]
A cage without a view increases stress and impairs cognitive performance in rats
Single housing is believed to be chronically stressful and to have a negative impact on welfare and cognition in rats (Rattus norvegicus). However, single housing does not consistently evoke stress-like responses nor does it consistently impair cognitive performance. In an experiment in which all cages were separated by an opaque barrier, single- and pair-housed pigmented […]
Effects of maternal cortisol treatment on offspring size, responses to stress, and anxiety-related behavior in wild largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides)
Cortisol, the main glucocorticoid stress hormone in teleost fish, is of interest as a mediator of maternal stress on offspring characteristics because it plays an organizational role during early development. The present study tested the hypothesis that maternal exposure to cortisol treatment prior to spawn affects offspring phenotype using wild largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides). Baseline […]