Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Development and testing of a rapid method for measuring shoal size discrimination

  • Methods Paper
  • Published:
Animal Cognition Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The shoal-choice test is a popular method to investigate quantity discrimination in social fish based on their spontaneous preference for the larger of two shoals. The shoal-choice test usually requires a long observation time (20–30 min), mainly because fish switch between the two shoals with low frequency, thus reducing the possibilities of comparison. This duration limits the use of the shoal-choice test for large-scale screenings. Here, we developed a new version of the shoal-choice test in which the subject was confined in a large transparent cylinder in the middle of the tank throughout the experiment to bound the minimum distance from the stimulus shoals and favour switching. We tested the new method by observing guppies (Poecilia reticulata) in a 4 versus 6 fish discrimination (experiment 1). The new method allowed for a faster assessment of the preference for the larger shoal (<5 min), resulting in potential application for large population screenings. Guppies switched five times more frequently between the two shoals and remained close to the first chosen shoal ten times less compared to experiments with the old method. In experiment 2, we found that with the new method guppies were able to discriminate up to 5 versus 6 fish, a discrimination that was not achieved with the classical method. This last result indicates that minor methodological modifications can lead to very different findings in the same species and suggests that caution should be exercised when interpreting inter-specific differences in quantitative abilities.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Agrillo C, Bisazza A (2014) Spontaneous versus trained numerical abilities. A comparison between the two main tools to study numerical competence in non-human animals. J Neurosci Methods 234:82–91

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Agrillo C, Dadda M (2007) Discrimination of the larger shoal in the poeciliid fish Girardinus falcatus. Ethol Ecol Evol 19:145–157

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Agrillo C, Dadda M, Bisazza A (2007) Quantity discrimination in female mosquitofish. Anim Cogn 10:63–70

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Agrillo C, Dadda M, Serena G (2008) Choice of female groups by male mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki). Ethology 114:479–488

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Agrillo C, Dadda M, Serena G, Bisazza A (2009) Use of number by fish. PLoS One 4:e4786

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Agrillo C, Piffer L, Bisazza A, Butterworth B (2012) Evidence for two numerical systems that are similar in humans and guppies. PLoS One 7:e31923

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Bisazza A, Butterworth B, Piffer L, Bahrami B, Miletto Petrazzini ME, Agrillo C (2014a) Collective enhancement of numerical acuity by meritocratic leadership in fish. Sci Rep 4:4560

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Bisazza A, Agrillo C, Lucon-Xiccato T (2014b) Extensive training extends numerical abilities of guppies. Anim Cogn 17:1413–1419

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Brembs B, Heisenberg M (2000) The operant and the classical in conditioned orientation of Drosophila melanogaster at the flight simulator. Learn Mem 7:104–115

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Cachat J, Stewart A, Grossman L, Gaikwad S, Kadri F, Chung KM et al (2010) Measuring behavioral and endocrine responses to novelty stress in adult zebrafish. Nat Protoc 5:1786–1799

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Chandroo KP, Duncan IJ, Moccia RD (2004) Can fish suffer? Perspectives on sentience, pain, fear and stress. Appl Anim Behav Sci 86:225–250

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chittka L, Skorupski P, Raine NE (2009) Speed–accuracy tradeoffs in animal decision making. Trends Ecol Evol 24:400–407

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Cote J, Fogarty S, Sih A (2012) Individual sociability and choosiness between shoal types. Anim Behav 83:1469–1476

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dadda M, Piffer L, Agrillo C, Bisazza A (2009) Spontaneous number representation in mosquitofish. Cognition 112:343–348

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Dadda M, Agrillo C, Bisazza A, Brown C (2015) Laterality enhances numerical skills in the guppy, Poecilia reticulata. Front Behav Neurosci 9:285

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Gatto E, Lucon-Xiccato T, Savaşçı BB, Dadda M, Bisazza A (2016) Experimental setting affects the performance of guppies in a numerical discrimination task. Anim Cogn. doi:10.1007/s10071-016-1037-7

    Google Scholar 

  • Giurfa M, Schubert M, Reisenman C, Gerber B, Lachnit H (2003) The effect of cumulative experience on the use of elemental and configural visual discrimination strategies in honeybees. Behav Brain Res 145:161–169

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gómez-Laplaza LM (2006) Shoal choice in juvenile angelfish (Pterophyllum scalare): effects of social status and activity. Ethol Ecol Evol 18:261–273

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gómez-Laplaza LM, Gerlai R (2011) Can angelfish (Pterophyllum scalare) count? Discrimination between different shoal sizes follows Weber’s law. Anim Cogn 14:1–9

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gómez-Laplaza LM, Gerlai R (2012) Activity counts: the effect of swimming activity on quantity discrimination in fish. Front Psychol 3:484

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Hager MC, Helfman GS (1991) Safety in numbers: shoal size choice by minnows under predatory threat. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 29:271–276

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hoare DJ, Couzin ID, Godin JG, Krause J (2004) Context-dependent group size choice in fish. Anim Behav 67:155–164

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Krause J, Ruxton GD (2002) Living in groups. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Krause J, Godin JGJ, Rubenstein D (1998) Group choice as a function of group size differences and assessment time in fish: the influence of species vulnerability to predation. Ethology 104:68–74

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lindström K, Ranta E (1993) Social preferences by male guppies, Poecilia reticulata, based on shoal size and sex. Anim Behav 46:1029–1031

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lucon-Xiccato T, Dadda M (2016a) Individual guppies differ in quantity discrimination performance across antipredator and foraging contexts. Behav Ecol Sociobiol (accepted manuscript)

  • Lucon-Xiccato T, Dadda M (2016b) Guppies show behavioural but not cognitive sex differences in a novel object recognition test. PLoS One 11:e0156589

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Lucon-Xiccato T, Dadda M, Bisazza A (2016) Sex differences in discrimination of shoal size in the guppy (Poecilia reticulata). Ethology 122:481–491

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Magurran AE, Pitcher TJ (1987) Provenance, shoal size and the sociobiology of predator-evasion behaviour in minnow shoals. Proc R Soc B Biol Sci 229:439–465

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Miletto Petrazzini ME, Agrillo C (2016) Turning to the larger shoal: are there individual differences in small-and large-quantity discrimination of guppies? Ethol Ecol Evol 28:211–220

    Google Scholar 

  • Mühlhoff N, Stevens JR, Reader SM (2011) Spatial discounting of food and social rewards in guppies (Poecilia reticulata). Front Psychol 2:68

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • O’Hara M, Huber L, Gajdon GK (2015) The advantage of objects over images in discrimination and reversal learning by kea, Nestor notabilis. Anim Behav 101:51–60

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Patton EE, Zon LI (2001) The art and design of genetic screens: zebrafish. Nat Rev Genet 2:956–966

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Plath M, Richter S, Tiedemann R, Schlupp I (2008) Male fish deceive competitors about mating preferences. Curr Biol 18:1138–1141

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Rosenthal GG, Ryan MJ (2005) Assortative preferences for stripes in danios. Anim Behav 70:1063–1066

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sokal RR, Rohlf FJ (1995) Biometry: the principals and practice of statistics in biological research. WH Freeman and Company, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Stephens DW (2008) Decision ecology: foraging and the ecology of animal decision making. Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci 8:475–484

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tegeder RW, Krause J (1995) Density dependence and numerosity in fright stimulated aggregation behaviour of shoaling fish. Philos Trans R Soc B Biol Sci 350:381–390

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wickens DD, Nield AF, Tuber DS, Wickens C (1970) Classically conditioned compound-element discrimination as a function of length of training, amount of testing and CS-UCS interval. Learn Motiv 1:95–109

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Alessio Ferrari and Daniele Carlesso for their help in testing the subjects, two anonymous Referees and Ken Cheng for their helpful suggestions. This work was supported by Università di Padova under Grant ‘Progetto di Ateneo 2014’ Number CPDA 131092/13.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Psicologia Generale, Università di Padova, Via Venezia 8, 35131, Padova, Italy

    Tyrone Lucon-Xiccato, Marco Dadda, Elia Gatto & Angelo Bisazza

Authors
  1. Tyrone Lucon-Xiccato
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Marco Dadda
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Elia Gatto
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Angelo Bisazza
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tyrone Lucon-Xiccato.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declared no conflict of interest.

Ethical standard

All applicable international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed. The experiments complied with the law of the country (Italy) in which they were performed (Decreto legislativo 4 marzo 2014, n. 26). The experimental procedure has been approved by Università di Padova ethical committee (protocol n. 32/2015).

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Lucon-Xiccato, T., Dadda, M., Gatto, E. et al. Development and testing of a rapid method for measuring shoal size discrimination. Anim Cogn 20, 149–157 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-016-1050-x

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-016-1050-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation