PUBLICATION

Sex-specific perceptual spaces for a vertebrate basal social aggregative behavior

Authors
Engeszer, R.E., Wang, G., Ryan, M.J., and Parichy, D.M.
ID
ZDB-PUB-080218-7
Date
2008
Source
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America   105(3): 929-933 (Journal)
Registered Authors
Engeszer, Ray, Parichy, David M.
Keywords
perception, pigment pattern, shoaling, social behavior, zebrafish
MeSH Terms
  • Humans
  • Social Behavior*
  • Animals
  • Male
  • Female
  • Fishes/physiology*
  • Space Perception/physiology*
  • Behavior, Animal/physiology*
  • Sex Characteristics*
  • Phenotype
(all 10)
PubMed
18199839 Full text @ Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA
Abstract
Loose aggregations of fishes, or shoals, are a basal social organization of vertebrates and offer a valuable opportunity to determine how individual perceptions influence group formation. We used zebrafish, Danio rerio, to comprehensively investigate the preference space for shoaling related to adult pigment pattern variation, presented in the form of 17 zebrafish pigment pattern mutants or closely related species. We examined all combinations of these phenotypes in 2,920 initial and replicated preference tests, and used as subjects both domesticated laboratory stocks and wild-caught fish. By using multidimensional scaling and other approaches, we show that laboratory and wild zebrafish exhibit similar preferences, yet, unexpectedly, these preferences differ markedly between sexes, and also from how human observers perceive the same pigment patterns. Whereas zebrafish males respond to two traits (species and stripe patterning) in deciding whether to join a shoal, zebrafish female preferences do not correlate with a priori identifiable traits, and neither perceptual world is correlated with that of human observers. The observed zebrafish sex differences run counter to the most commonly accepted explanations for the individual selective advantages gained by shoaling. More generally, these data describe very different perceptual worlds between sexes and reveal the importance of sex differences in social group formation, as well as the critical importance of defining species specificity in visual signaling.
Genes / Markers
Figures
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Expression
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Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Allele Construct Type Affected Genomic Region
b4
    Insertion
    b5
      Small Deletion
      b140
        Unknown
        j4e1
          Point Mutation
          j198e1
            Unknown
            utr15e1
              Point Mutation
              utr19e1
                Unknown
                w2
                  Point Mutation
                  wpr21e1
                    Unknown
                    1 - 9 of 9
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                    Human Disease / Model
                    No data available
                    Sequence Targeting Reagents
                    No data available
                    Fish
                    Antibodies
                    No data available
                    Orthology
                    No data available
                    Engineered Foreign Genes
                    No data available
                    Mapping
                    No data available