Tank cleaning temporarily increases stress and decreases affiliative behavior in zebrafish
Small, tropical fish are popular companion animals and constitute a major proportion of the vertebrates used in scientific research, but little is known about how they are affected by routine husbandry practices. Manual tank cleanings are a common and potentially stressful maintenance procedure that involves siphoning out a substantial volume of tank water, ‘vacuuming’ the […]
The impact of housing environment color on zebrafish anxiety-like behavioral and physiological (cortisol) responses
Color of the environment is an important factor modulating human and animal behavior and physiology. Animal models are a valuable tool to understand how colors affect social, cognitive and affective responses. The zebrafish (Danio rerio) is rapidly emerging as an important organism in neuroscience and physiology. Here, we examine whether the color of housing environment […]
Increase in environmental temperature affects exploratory behaviour, anxiety and social preference in Danio rerio
The aim of this work is to investigate the effect of a temperature increase on the behaviour of adult zebrafish (Danio rerio) maintained for 21 days at 34 °C (treatment) and 26 °C (control). The temperatures chosen are within the vital range of zebrafish and correspond to temperatures that this species encounters in the natural environment. Previous […]
Social learning of escape routes in zebrafish and the stability of behavioural traditions
Multiple factors potentially influence the formation and longevity of behavioural traditions. In zebrafish, Danio rerio, we investigated whether subjects follow knowledgeable fish escaping from a novel artificial predator, learn this escape response, and maintain the demonstrated escape route and response when knowledgeable fish were removed. A moving [`]trawl’ net forced fish to escape via one […]
Pheromonal regulation of reproductive success in female zebrafish: female suppression and male enhancement
Competition among females represents an important but rather neglected variable in studies of sexual selection. Probably to avoid injury to self and offspring, competition among females is often displayed without much physical interaction and therefore remains harder to observe. Here, we show for the first time in a teleost fish, the zebrafish Danio rerio, that […]
Kin recognition and inbreeding avoidance in zebrafish, Danio rerio, is based on phenotype matching
Differentiating kin from nonkin enables organisms of many species to allocate resources or altruistic behaviour towards related conspecifics and to avoid mating with close relatives. Kin recognition mechanisms can vary among species and may reflect the social environment. Learned familiarity with nest or shoalmates may serve as a good indication that individuals are related, as […]
Physiological and health consequences of social status in zebrafish (Danio rerio)
Social status affects access to food, mates and shelter and has consequences for the physiology of individuals and their health status. In the zebrafish (Danio rerio), an emerging model for studies into animal behavior, the possible consequences of social hierarchy to an individual’s physiology and health are unknown. To address this, in this species we […]
Locomotor behaviors in zebrafish (Danio rerio) larvae
Locomotor behaviors were examined in two experiments using zebrafish (Danio rerio) larvae at 4, 5, 6 and 7 days post fertilization (dpf). Larvae were observed in individual wells of a 12-well plate for 1 h a day. In Experiment 1, the same larvae were observed for four consecutive days beginning on post-fertilization day 4; in […]
Acute stress disrupts performance of zebrafish in the cued and spatial memory tests: The utility of fish models to study stress–memory interplay
The zebrafish (Danio rerio) has emerged as a promising model organism for affective or cognitive neuroscience research, and may be useful to study the interplay between memory and anxiety-related states. To assess the effects of acute psychological stress on spatial and cued memory, adult zebrafish were trained in an aquatic plus-maze for 14 days using […]
Sex-specific perceptual spaces for a vertebrate basal social aggregative behavior
Loose aggregations of fishes, or shoals, are a basal social organization of vertebrates and offer a valuable opportunity to determine how individual perceptions influence group formation. We used zebrafish, Danio rerio, to comprehensively investigate the preference space for shoaling related to adult pigment pattern variation, presented in the form of 17 zebrafish pigment pattern mutants […]