López-Olmeda Jose Fernando, Zhao Haiyu, Reischl Markus, Pylatiuk Christian, Lucon-Xiccato Tyrone, Loosli Felix, Foulkes Nicholas S
Institute of Biological and Chemical Systems, Biological Information Processing (IBCS-BIP), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Hermann-von-Helmholtz Platz 1, 76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany.
Department of Physiology, Faculty of Biology, University of Murcia, 30100 Murcia, Spain.
iScience. 2021 Jun 25;24(7):102784. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2021.102784. eCollection 2021 Jul 23.
Day length in conjunction with seasonal cycles affects many aspects of animal biology. We have studied photoperiod-dependent alterations of complex behavior in the teleost, medaka (), a photoperiodic breeder, in a learning paradigm whereby fish have to activate a sensor to obtain a food reward. Medaka were tested under a long (14:10 LD) and short (10:14 LD) photoperiod in three different groups: mixed-sex, all-males, and all-females. Under long photoperiod, medaka mixed-sex groups learned rapidly with a stable response. Unexpectedly, males-only groups showed a strong learning deficit, whereas females-only groups performed efficiently. In mixed-sex groups, female individuals drove group learning, whereas males apparently prioritized mating over feeding behavior resulting in strongly reduced learning performance. Under short photoperiod, where medaka do not mate, male performance improved to a level similar to that of females. Thus, photoperiod has sex-specific effects on the learning performance of a seasonal vertebrate.
日照时长与季节周期共同影响着动物生物学的诸多方面。我们以光周期繁殖鱼类青鳉（）为研究对象，在一种学习范式中，研究了硬骨鱼复杂行为的光周期依赖性变化，在此范式下，鱼类必须激活一个传感器才能获得食物奖励。青鳉在长光照周期（14:10光暗比）和短光照周期（10:14光暗比）下分为三个不同组进行测试：混合性别组、全雄性组和全雌性组。在长光照周期下，混合性别组的青鳉学习迅速且反应稳定。出乎意料的是，全雄性组表现出强烈的学习缺陷，而全雌性组学习效率高。在混合性别组中，雌性个体推动了群体学习，而雄性显然将交配置于摄食行为之上，导致学习表现大幅下降。在短光照周期下，青鳉不交配，雄性的表现提高到与雌性相似的水平。因此光周期对季节性脊椎动物的学习表现具有性别特异性影响。
