Silveira M M, de Souza J F, Araujo-Silva H, Luchiari A C
Departamento de Fisiologia e Comportamento, Centro de Biociências, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, Brazil.
Front Behav Neurosci. 2021 Aug 17;15:663423. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2021.663423. eCollection 2021.
The ability to discriminate familiar from unfamiliar conspecifics has been demonstrated in several species of fish. Agonistic interactions are among the most frequent behaviors exhibited by territorial species and could offer useful information for the individual recognition process. In agonistic situations, memory may modulate the behavioral response and affect social dynamics, but few studies have explored the memory retention acquired during aggressive encounters. The present study investigated the memory retention of an agonistic encounter in the dusky damselfish . The experimental procedure was divided into three parts: (1) Familiarization; (2) Recognition test; and (3) Memory test. During the familiarization phase, the fish were visually exposed to the same conspecific for 5 days (10 min per day) and the behavior was recorded. On the following day (conspecific recognition test), half of the animals were paired with the same conspecific and the other half with a different conspecific for 10 min, and the behavior was recorded. The fish were retested 5, 10, and 15 days after the test to evaluate memory retention. In the memory test, they were exposed to the same conspecific as before or to a different conspecific. We found that the damselfish reduced their agonistic displays when the stimulus fish was familiar, but when it was unfamiliar, the animals were more aggressive and only reduced their mnemonic response after 10 days. These results suggest that the recognition ability of damselfish can be affected by time and that it modulates agonistic response.
在几种鱼类中已证明了区分熟悉和不熟悉同种个体的能力。争斗性互动是领地性物种表现出的最常见行为之一，可能为个体识别过程提供有用信息。在争斗情境中，记忆可能会调节行为反应并影响社会动态，但很少有研究探讨在攻击性遭遇中获得的记忆保持情况。本研究调查了暗带豆娘鱼争斗遭遇的记忆保持情况。实验过程分为三个部分：（1）熟悉阶段；（2）识别测试；（3）记忆测试。在熟悉阶段，让鱼每天10分钟、连续5天视觉接触同一条同种鱼，并记录其行为。在接下来的一天（同种识别测试），将一半的动物与同一条同种鱼配对，另一半与不同的同种鱼配对10分钟，并记录行为。在测试后的第5天、第10天和第15天对鱼进行重新测试以评估记忆保持情况。在记忆测试中，让它们接触之前的同一条同种鱼或不同的同种鱼。我们发现，当刺激鱼是熟悉的时，豆娘鱼会减少其争斗性展示，但当刺激鱼不熟悉时，动物会更具攻击性，并且仅在10天后才会降低其记忆反应。这些结果表明，豆娘鱼的识别能力会受到时间的影响，并且它会调节争斗反应。
