Conspecific density and environmental complexity impact behaviour of turquoise killifish (Nothobranchius furzeri)

Abstract

Fish models are essential for research in many biological and medical disciplines. With a typical lifespan of only 6 months, the Turquoise killifish (Nothobranchius furzeri) was recently established as a time-and cost-efficient model to facilitate whole-life and multigenerational studies in several research fields, including behavioural ecotoxicology. Essential information on the behavioural norm and on how laboratory conditions affect behaviour, however, is deficient. In the current study, we examined the impact of the social and structural environment on a broad spectrum of behavioural endpoints in N. furzeri. While structural enrichment affected only fish boldness and exploratory behaviour, fish rearing density affected the total body length, locomotor activity, boldness, aggressiveness and feeding behaviour of N. furzeri individuals. Overall, these results contribute to compiling a behavioural baseline for N. furzeri that increases the applicability of this new model species. Furthermore, our findings will fuel the development of improved husbandry protocols to maximize the welfare of N. furzeri in a laboratory setting.

Age-Related Alterations in the Behavior and Serotonin-Related Gene mRNA Levels in the Brain of Males and Females of Short-Lived Turquoise Killifish (Nothobranchius furzeri)

“…First of all, we found that males were heavier than females of the same age. This result confirms earlier obtained data [15,18,20,31,32]. Body masses of males progressively increased with age and old males were significantly heavier than young ones.…”

“…Turquoise killifish is a promising model species for neuroscience, psychopharmacology and ecotoxicology [18,19,[31][32][33][34][35]. Behavioral variation in males and females of killifish was shown in the emergence, open field, habitat choice, life skill tests [33] and diurnal activity [34].…”

Physical enrichment research for captive fish: Time to focus on the DETAILS

“…Density of individuals in aquaria has long been known to impact behaviour (Ellis et al ., 2002), for example a recent study showed that killifish, Nothobranchius furzeri R. A. Jubb, 1971, exhibit differences in body length, activity, aggressiveness and feeding behaviour across different densities (Thoré et al ., 2020). Beyond ‘simple’ fish density, social factors can impact the effects of or requirements for PE.…”

Alternative Animal Models of Aging Research

“…In summary, annual killifishes and particularly N. furzeri, are the most diffused among the alternative models due to relative ease of housing and breeding. This has contributed to the availability of a number of key resources, such as highquality genomes and transcriptomes (Reichwald et al, 2015;Valenzano et al, 2015), homo-and heterozygous laboratory strains (Valenzano et al, 2009), genetic manipulation tools (Harel et al, 2016) as well as an increasing knowledge about N. furzeri's ecology and behavior (Thoré et al, 2020). An important challenge for the future is improved standardization, e.g., through the development of husbandry protocols, or time-and cost-efficient test frameworks to determine the effects of chemical compounds on lifespan (Thoré et al, 2020(Thoré et al, , 2021.…”