Bisazza A, Pignatti R, Vallortigara G
Dipartimento di Psicologia Generale, Universita di Padova
Anim Behav. 1997 Nov;54(5):1273-81. doi: 10.1006/anbe.1997.0522.
We measured whether males of five species of poeciliid fish made detours to the right or left of a vertical-bar obstacle in order to approach a group of females. Three of these species, Gambusia holbrookiGambusia nicaraguensis and Poecilia reticulata showed a significant bias to the left, whereas Brachyrhaphis roseni and Girardinus falcatus showed a significant bias to the right. When tested for direction of turning in front of an opaque barrier, or when a dummy predator was used as a target in a detour test, G. holbrooki and G. falcatus showed similar biases to the right (opaque barrier) and left (predator), thus suggesting that the difference observed when females were used as a target could arise from species differences in the degree of sexual motivation in a novel environment. The two species that showed bias to the right with the females were less likely to exhibit sexual behaviour when placed in a novel environment. Moreover, manipulation of the factors affecting the relative strength of sexual motivation and of fear of a novel environment, such as how long fish were maintained in captivity or in the test apparatus before being tested, caused shifts in the direction of the lateral asymmetries. These results suggest that the presence of functional asymmetries in behaviour could be widespread among vertebrates and that the direction of such asymmetries tends to be strikingly similar in closely related species, thus supporting the hypothesis of an early evolution of laterality in brain and behaviour.Copyright 1997 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour1997The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour
我们测量了五种食蚊鱼雄性个体在靠近一群雌性个体时，是否会绕过垂直杆障碍物向左或向右迂回。其中三种食蚊鱼，即霍氏食蚊鱼、尼加拉瓜食蚊鱼和孔雀鱼，表现出显著的向左偏向，而罗氏短臂鳉和镰形魅丽脂鲤则表现出显著的向右偏向。当在不透明障碍物前测试转向方向时，或者在迂回测试中使用假捕食者作为目标时，霍氏食蚊鱼和镰形魅丽脂鲤表现出类似的向右（不透明障碍物）和向左（捕食者）的偏向，这表明当以雌性为目标时观察到的差异可能源于新环境中性动机程度的物种差异。在新环境中，对雌性表现出向右偏向的两个物种不太可能表现出性行为。此外，对影响性动机相对强度和对新环境恐惧的因素进行操控，比如在测试前鱼在圈养环境或测试装置中饲养的时间长短，会导致侧向不对称方向的改变。这些结果表明，行为功能不对称在脊椎动物中可能很普遍，而且在亲缘关系密切的物种中，这种不对称的方向往往惊人地相似，从而支持了大脑和行为中偏侧性早期进化的假说。版权所有1997动物行为研究协会1997动物行为研究协会
