PUBLICATION
Embryonic exposure to artificial light at night impairs learning abilities and their covariance with behavioural traits in teleost fish
- Authors
- Lucon-Xiccato, T., De Russi, G., Cannicci, S., Maggi, E., Bertolucci, C.
- ID
- ZDB-PUB-231122-20
- Date
- 2023
- Source
- Biology letters 19: 2023043620230436 (Journal)
- Registered Authors
- Bertolucci, Cristiano, Lucon-Xiccato, Tyrone
- Keywords
- ALAN, cognitive plasticity, cognitive variation, fish cognition, personality, zebrafish
- MeSH Terms
-
- Animals
- Behavior, Animal
- Humans
- Larva
- Light*
- Light Pollution
- Mammals
- Zebrafish*
- PubMed
- 37990566 Full text @ Biol. Lett.
Citation
Lucon-Xiccato, T., De Russi, G., Cannicci, S., Maggi, E., Bertolucci, C. (2023) Embryonic exposure to artificial light at night impairs learning abilities and their covariance with behavioural traits in teleost fish. Biology letters. 19:2023043620230436.
Abstract
The natural light cycle has profound effects on animals' cognitive systems. Its alteration owing to human activities, such as artificial light at night (ALAN), affects the biodiversity of mammalian and avian species by impairing their cognitive functions. The impact of ALAN on cognition, however, has not been investigated in aquatic species, in spite of the common occurrence of this pollution along water bodies. We exposed eggs of a teleost fish (the zebrafish Danio rerio) to ALAN and, upon hatching, we measured larvae' cognitive abilities with a habituation learning paradigm. Both control and ALAN-exposed larvae showed habituation learning, but the latter learned significantly slower, suggesting that under ALAN conditions, fish require many more events to acquire ecologically relevant information. We also found that individuals' learning performance significantly covaried with two behavioural traits in the control zebrafish, but ALAN disrupted one of these relationships. Additionally, ALAN resulted in an average increase in larval activity. Our results showed that both fish's cognitive abilities and related individual differences are negatively impacted by light pollution, even after a short exposure in the embryonic stage.
Genes / Markers
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping