It's in the eye of the beholder: visual lateralisation in response to the social environment in poeciliids

Abstract

The social environment offers fish complex information about the quality, performance, personality and other cues of potential mates and competitors simultaneously. It is likely, therefore, that the environmental information regarding the context of mate choice is perceived and processed differently in species and sexes in respect to lateralisation. The present study comparatively assessed visual lateralisation behaviour in response to different social or sexual stimuli in three closely related poeciliid species (P. latipinna, P. mexicana, P. formosa) in comparison to a more distantly related species (P. reticulata). Individuals were presented with four different social or sexual stimuli that were tested against a control stimulus; (a) a conspecific male, (b) a conspecific female, (c) a heterosexual conspecific pair, (d) three conspecific females (shoal). In order to approach a target stimulus, focal fish had to perform detours to the right or left of a vertically straight-shaped barrier. The three closely related poeciliid species, P. latipinna,

Laterality and fish welfare - A review

“…To our knowledge no such investigations have examined this in the context of fish parental care despite parental care being commonplace in many fish species (Balshine, 2012). Sovrano et al (1999; suggest fish process social stimuli preferentially with their right hemisphere, (Sovrano et al, 1999;Sovrano, 2004) though this directional preference can differ even within the same taxonomic family (Fuss et al, 2019) and between different sexes (Reddon and Balshine, 2010).…”

Phenotypic Variation in an Asexual-Sexual Fish System: Visual Lateralization

“…Therefore, the type of stimulus used, particularly the social stimulus, can affect lateralization. Fuss et al (2019) found a statistically significant left-eye bias for female sailfin mollies and Amazon mollies when viewing a female group stimulus, although no such bias when viewing a single female. While most fish are not thought to recognize their own reflection (Kohda et al, 2019), the lack of visual bias and similar variation in both species of our study could indicate a lack of motivation to perform lateralization for the mirror reflection meant to represent a single female.…”

“…Furthermore, mixed visual lateralization in schooling fish determine the fishes' position within the school and overall school cohesion (Dadda and Bisazza, 2006;Bibost and Brown, 2013). A number of studies using poeciliid species found a clear eye bias, with female poeciliids commonly exhibiting a left-eye bias for conspecific stimuli and a right-eye bias for predator or male stimuli (Bisazza et al, 1997a(Bisazza et al, ,b, 1998(Bisazza et al, , 1999De Santi et al, 2001;Fuss et al, 2019). Therefore, the type of stimulus used, particularly the social stimulus, can affect lateralization.…”

“…Previous comparative studies, including one on visual lateralization (Fuss et al, 2019), focus on the average performance between the Amazon molly and sailfin molly. Here we also focus on the variation in behavior; variation in asexual populations may indicate a potential mechanism to circumvent the classic costs of this reproductive style and thus perpetuate their coexistence with a sexual species.…”

“…We used a well-studied cognitive task-visual lateralization (Clayton, 1993;McGrew and Marchant, 1999;Pascual et al, 2004;Rogers et al, 2004;Vallortigara and Rogers, 2005;Rogers and Vallortigara, 2008). Visual lateralization is known to vary based on the stimulus (Bisazza et al, 1997a(Bisazza et al, ,b, 1998(Bisazza et al, , 1999De Santi et al, 2001;Sovrano et al, 2001;Fuss et al, 2019), environmental pressures such as predation (Brown et al, 2004;Ferrari et al, 2015), and density dependent selection (Ghirlanda and Vallortigara, 2004;Nakajima et al, 2004). Visual lateralization is present in many poeciliid species in response to some but not all stimuli, including the two species used in this study: Girardinus falcatus, Gambusia holbrooki, G. nicaraguensis, Brachyrhaphis roseni (Bisazza et al, 1997b), Poecilia latipinna, P. formosa, P. mexicana, P. reticulata (Fuss et al, 2019).…”