Shoaling develops with age in Zebrafish (Danio rerio)

Abstract

The biological mechanisms of human social behavior are complex. Animal models may facilitate the understanding of these mechanisms and may help one to develop treatment strategies for abnormal human social behavior, a core symptom in numerous clinical conditions. The zebrafish is perhaps the most social vertebrate among commonly used laboratory species. Given its practical features and the numerous genetic tools developed for it, it should be a promising tool. Zebrafish shoal, i.e. form tight multimember groups, but the ontogenesis of this behavior has not been described. Analyzing the development of shoaling is a step towards discovering the mechanisms of this behavior. Here we study age-dependent changes of shoaling in zebrafish from day 7 post fertilization to over 5 months of age by measuring the distance between all pairs of fish in freely swimming groups of ten subjects. Our longitudinal (repeated measure within subject) and cross sectional (non-repeated measure between subject) analyses both demonstrated a significant increase of shoaling with age (decreased distance between shoal members). Given the sophisticated genetic and developmental biology methods already available for zebrafish, we argue that our behavioral results open a new avenue towards the understanding of the development of vertebrate social behavior and of its mechanisms and abnormalities.

The zebrafish as a promising tool for modeling human brain disorders: A review based upon an IBNS Symposium

“…Although innate, shoaling is not observed in zebrafish younger than 7 days post-fertilization (dpf). But as the fish mature, shoaling appears (demonstrated by 15 dpf ), and cohesion among shoal members significantly Zebrafish models of human brain disorders 10 Shams et al increases until the fish reach sexual maturity at age 3-4 months, after which shoaling plateaus (Buske and Gerlai, 2011;Dreosti et al, 2015;Hinz & de Polaveija, 2017).…”

“…neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin have been found to be positively correlated with shoaling in zebrafish (Buske and Gerlai, 2011;Dahlbom et al, 2012;Saif et al, 2013;Shams et al, 2015), specific functional mechanisms and brain regions that control shoaling remain poorly understood. Nonetheless, reliable paradigms that allow manipulation and quantification of shoaling and related behaviors provide unique opportunities to predict, test, and understand biological mechanisms that regulate shoaling and, in turn, enhance social behavior research.…”

Nonapeptide influences on social behaviour: effects of vasotocin and isotocin on shoaling and interaction in zebrafish

“…While IT has been shown to stimulate social approach in goldfish, effects are only seen in subjects with lower baseline levels of social approach (Thompson & Walton, 2004). Since zebrafish show very strong shoaling tendencies (Buske & Gerlai, 2011) our ability to detect any influence of IT administration may have been limited by a ceiling effect. Another possibility is that IT does not increase gregarious behaviour in zebrafish, as supported by recent findings that certain doses of IT decreased preferences for same-strain zebrafish (Braida et al, 2012).…”

Electronic individual identification of zebrafish using radio frequency identification (RFID) microtags

“…From a practical viewpoint, this requires laboratories to manage large rearing facilities housing several hundred tanks, which is both costly and time consuming in terms of husbandry (Sire et al, 2000). Moreover, rearing problems may occur in zebrafish if populations are small because this interferes with shoaling behaviour, especially as shoaling in this species has been shown to increase significantly with age (Buske and Gerlai, 2011). Furthermore, because small fish such as zebrafish (≤30mm standard length, SL) are not aggressive and do not fight when kept in groups, it would be possible to keep numerous similar-sized specimens in a single tank, leading to a drastic reduction in tank numbers.…”