Larval Zebrafish Exhibit Collective Circulation in Confined Spaces

Abstract

Collective behavior may be elicited or can spontaneously emerge by a combination of interactions with the physical environment and conspecifics moving within that environment. To investigate the relative contributions of these factors in a small millimeter-scale swimming organism, we observed larval zebrafish, interacting at varying densities under circular confinement. If left undisturbed, larval zebrafish swim intermittently in a burst and coast manner and are socially independent at this developmental stage, before shoaling behavioral onset. Our aim was to explore the behavior these larvae as they swim together inside circular confinements. We report here our analysis of a new observation for this well-studied species: in circular confinement and at sufficiently high densities, the larvae collectively circle rapidly alongside the boundary. This is a new physical example of self-organization of mesoscale living active matter driven by boundaries and environment geometry. We believe this is a step forward toward using a prominent biological model system in a new interdisciplinary context to advance knowledge of the physics of social interactions.

Biophysical Fluid Dynamics in a Petri Dish

“…For the source in Fig. 3(b) the horizontal velocity u x displays an increasing maximum as the observation point x approaches the singularity location, while the vertical velocity component u z has a positive divergence for z → h + and a negative divergence as z → h − as expected for a source, while vanishing at the top and bottom boundaries, as required by (11). Both the rotlet dipole in Fig.…”

“…when studying Liesegang rings [3,4]) or in entomology where they are convenient enclosures to study the behaviour of insects and small animals [5,6]. A Petri dish environment is also a simple and common setting in which to examine the locomotion of swimming organisms, particularly those whose body size is tens of microns to millimetres [7][8][9][10][11].…”

High-resolution tracking of unconfined zebrafish behavior reveals stimulatory and anxiolytic effects of psilocybin

“…Using this setup, we examined behavioral impacts of the size of behavioral arenas by comparing swimming trajectories between those in a small, walled arena (30 mm) and those in a large unwalled arena (90 mm). Zebrafish typically swam near the wall in the small arena due to their innate preferences called thigmotaxis 51 . In our large arena, on the contrary, they explored widely (Figures 1B and 1C) and swam longer distances during visual stimulus motion (Figure 1D).…”

Larval Zebrafish as a Model for Mechanistic Discovery in Mental Health

“…As described in Section "Other Defensive Behaviors" and "Social Feeding Behavior, " the presence or absence of conspecifics influences feeding and defensive behavior . Circling behavior -defined as multiple conspecifics moving in an organized manner along the edges of the arena towards one direction -was observed in dishes with dense zebrafish populations and occurred more frequently along with increased densities (Zaki et al, 2021). Furthermore, it was also shown that larvae in dense arenas preferred edges and the outer circumferences of the arena.…”

“…Age Learned helplessness, locomotion, light/dark choice and transition, social aggregation/preference/orienting Lee et al, 2010;Lau et al, 2011;Padilla et al, 2011;Valente et al, 2012;Dreosti et al, 2015;Andalman et al, 2019;Stednitz and Washbourne, 2020 Arena size and depth Locomotion Padilla et al, 2011;Ingebretson and Masino, 2013;Christou et al, 2020 Genotype/strain Light-dark transition, startle habituation, stress-induced anorexia O' Malley et al, 2004;van den Bos et al, 2017;Cheng et al, 2022 Feeding state and diet Locomotion, social preference/orienting, thigmotaxis, feeding Clift et al, 2014;Filosa et al, 2016, Wee et al, 2019bStednitz and Washbourne, 2020 Environmental state Feeding, locomotion, light/dark choice, sleep, startle habituation McHenry et al, 2009;Clark et al, 2011;Olszewski et al, 2012;Suli et al, 2012;Yeh et al, 2013;De Marco et al, 2014Bai et al, 2016;Olive et al, 2016;Oteiza et al, 2017;Bhandiwad et al, 2018;Cheng et al, 2022 Crowding/fish density Thigmotaxis, locomotion, social aggregation/avoidance, feeding, defensive behavior, startle responsiveness Burgess and Granato, 2008;Zellner et al, 2011;Delomas and Dabrowski, 2019;Groneberg et al, 2020;Zaki et al, 2021; Time of day Locomotion and arousal, startle responsiveness Zhdanova et al, 2001;…”