PUBLICATION
No evidence for mate copying in Danio rerio
- Authors
- Nöbel, S., Wang, X., Cristante, M., Guëll, M., Tariel, J., Danchin, É., Roussigné, M.
- ID
- ZDB-PUB-230131-29
- Date
- 2023
- Source
- Behavioural processes 206: 104837 (Journal)
- Registered Authors
- Roussigné, Myriam
- Keywords
- mate choice, mate copying, personality, public information, social learning, zebrafish
- MeSH Terms
-
- Animals
- Choice Behavior
- Female
- Male
- Mating Preference, Animal*
- Reproduction
- Sexual Behavior, Animal
- Zebrafish
- PubMed
- 36716902 Full text @ Behav. Processes
Citation
Nöbel, S., Wang, X., Cristante, M., Guëll, M., Tariel, J., Danchin, É., Roussigné, M. (2023) No evidence for mate copying in Danio rerio. Behavioural processes. 206:104837.
Abstract
The zebrafish Danio rerio is an important model organism, but little is known about its mating preferences and how these are influenced by personality traits like boldness. In this study, we tested two strains of zebrafish and addressed whether females used social information to build a mating preference, a behavior called mate copying, and whether this social learning was affected by boldness. Thus, we provided positive social information for small males to test whether female zebrafish changed their mate preference after observing a pair of a small and a large male with a demonstrator female next to the small one. After that, we tested the observer female in a test maze to evaluate boldness. We found no significant evidence for mate copying as females did not change their preference for the small male after witnessing the large male alone and the small male interacting with another female and chose consistently larger males in a control without opportunity to copy. Whether the female was defined as shy or bold had no effect on mate copying. We conclude that mate copying is probably inexistent or only relatively weak in this species.
Genes / Markers
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping