Personality traits covary with individual differences in inhibitory abilities in 2 species of fish

Lucon‐Xiccato, Tyrone; Montalbano, Giulia; Bertolucci, Cristiano

doi:10.1093/cz/zoz039

Cited by 37 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 72 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Our results are consistent with previous studies showing consistent individual differences in inhibition in zebrafish (Lucon‐Xiccato et al ., 2020) and guppies (Lucon‐Xiccato et al ., 2020). As inhibition might support other higher‐level cognitive abilities (Diamond, 2013), IC variability could contribute to individual differences found among vertebrates (Lucon‐Xiccato et al ., 2020) in processes such as spatial abilities, reversal learning or social learning. From an evolutionary perspective variability in IC could result from selection pressures acting on other traits.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…From an evolutionary perspective variability in IC could result from selection pressures acting on other traits. There is a growing number of studies showing a relationship between personality traits and cognitive individual differences (Brown et al ., 2013; Lucon‐Xiccato et al ., 2020; White et al ., 2017). Personality traits are maintained through frequency‐dependent selection and spatio‐temporal fluctuation in natural selection (Dingemanse et al ., 2004; Dingemanse & Réale, 2005), which in turn may generate variation in inhibitory performances.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Intraspecific variation in inhibitory motor control in guppies, Poecilia reticulata

Macario

Darden

Verbruggen

et al. 2020

Journal of Fish Biology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Inhibitory control (IC) is the ability to overcome impulsive or prepotent but ineffective responses in favour of more appropriate behaviours. The ability to inhibit internal predispositions or external temptations is vital in coping with a complex and variable world. Traditionally viewed as cognitively demanding and a main component of executive functioning and self‐control, IC was historically examined in only a few species of birds and mammals but recently a number of studies has shown that a much wider range of taxa rely on IC. Furthermore, there is growing evidence that inhibitory abilities may vary within species at the population and individual levels owing to genetic and environmental factors. Here we use a detour‐reaching task, a standard paradigm to measure motor inhibition in nonhuman animals, to quantify patterns of interindividual variation in IC in wild‐descendant female guppies, Poecilia reticulata. We found that female guppies displayed inhibitory performances that were, on average, half as successful as the performances reported previously for other strains of guppies tested in similar experimental conditions. Moreover, we showed consistent individual variation in the ability to inhibit inappropriate behaviours. Our results contribute to the understanding of the evolution of fish cognition and suggest that IC may show considerable variation among populations within a species. Such variation in IC abilities might contribute to individual differences in other cognitive functions such as spatial learning, quantity discrimination or reversal learning.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intraspecific variation in inhibitory motor control in guppies, Poecilia reticulata

Macario

Darden

Verbruggen

et al. 2020

Journal of Fish Biology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Two diverse hypotheses have been proposed to link anxiety and stress to swimming in the OFt according to the species studied. More anxious individuals swim more intensively in the attempt to escape from the OF arena [ 28 , 30 ] or, alternatively, they perform more freezing behaviour, resulting in reduced swimming [ 35 ]. As anxiety and stress are expected to be higher for smaller compared with larger fish [ 36 ], the second hypothesis seems more suitable to account for our results.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Because medaka size varies with age, the size of the arena was scaled, according to the age of the subjects. Based on previous studies in adult and larvae fish [ 16 , 28 ], the size of the arena was varied as follows: 1 dph: 8 cm × 8 cm, filled with 2.5 cm of ERM; 10 dph: 8 cm × 8 cm, filled with 2.5 cm of ERM; 30 dph: 12 cm × 12 cm, filled with 4 cm of FW; 120 dph: 40 cm × 40 cm, filled with 12 cm of water. …”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For time spent swimming, the subjects’ body length/second was used as a threshold for movement, allowing us to analyse the subjects’ behaviour controlling for their size. Time spent in the centre of the arena was assessed with a threshold of one body length from the edges [ 28 ]. All these variables were measured for each minute of the test to allow analysis of the temporal pattern of behaviour.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Development of Open-Field Behaviour in the Medaka, Oryzias latipes

Lucon‐Xiccato

Conti

Loosli

et al. 2020

Biology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The use of juvenile and larval fish models has been growing in importance for several fields. Accordingly, the evaluation of behavioural tests that can be applied to larvae and juveniles is becoming increasingly important. We tested medaka at four different ages (1, 10, 30, and 120 dph) in the open field test, one of the most commonly used behavioural assays, to investigate its suitability for larvae and juveniles of this species. We also explored ontogenetic variation in behaviour during this test. On average, adult 120-day-old medaka showed higher locomotor activity in terms of distance moved compared with younger fish. Our analysis suggests that this effect was derived from both quantitative changes in locomotion related to the ontogenetic increase in fish size as well as qualitative changes in two aspects of locomotor behaviour. Specifically, time spent moving was similar between 1- and 10-day-old medaka, but progressively increased with development. In addition, we revealed that adult medaka showed constant levels of activity, whereas younger medaka progressively reduced their activity over the course of the entire experiment. The thigmotaxis behaviour typically used to assess anxiety in the open field test emerged at 120 days post-hatching, even though a difference in the temporal pattern of spatial preference emerged earlier, between 10 and 30 days post-hatching. In conclusion, some measures of the open field test such as total distance moved allow behavioural phenotyping in the medaka of all ages, although with some degree of quantitative and qualitative developmental variation. In contrast, immature medaka appear not to exhibit thigmotactic behaviour.

show abstract