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The function of wall-following behaviors in the Mexican blind cavefish and a sighted relative, the Mexican tetra (Astyanax)

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Abstract

Mexican blind cavefish exhibit an unconditioned wall-following behavior in response to novel environments. Similar behaviors have been observed in a wide variety of animals, but the biological significance and evolutionary history of this behavior are largely unknown. In this study, the behaviors of Mexican blind cavefish (Astyanax sp.) and sighted Mexican tetra (Astyanax mexicanus) were videotaped after fish were introduced into a novel environment under dark (infrared) or well-lit conditions. Under dark conditions, both sighted and blind morphs exhibited wall-following behaviors with subtle but significant differences. Blind morphs swam more nearly parallel to the wall, exhibited greater wall-following continuity and reached higher levels of sustained swimming speeds more quickly than sighted morphs. In contrast, sighted morphs in the light remained motionless near the wall for long periods of time or moved slowly around the center of the tank without entraining to the walls. These results are consistent with the idea that wall-following is a shared, primitive trait that serves an exploratory function under dark conditions to compensate for the absence of vision. This behavior has become more honed in blind morphs for exploratory purposes—in large part due to the enhanced, active-flow sensing abilities of the lateral line.

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Acknowledgments

This work was done in partial fulfillment for a Master’s degree for SS. We thank the committee members, Drs. Robert Huber and Paul Moore for their insightful comments and helpful suggestions throughout. We thank Dr. Tim Bonner for providing Mexican tetra and Tristan Ula for her able assistance in the care and maintenance of experimental animals. TBdP is supported by a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin fellowship and a L’Oreal UK Women in Science Fellowship. Finally, SS, SC and PP would like to thank their colleagues in a multi-university collaboration supported by the Bioinspired Concepts program (funded by the AIR force Office of Scientific Research) and the BioSenSE program (funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). In particular, we thank the PI of the project, Dr. Chang Liu for making the collaboration and support for this work possible, and Drs. Friedrich Barth, Horst Bleckmann, Pepe Humphrey and Doug Jones for their helpful insights and perspectives. These experiments comply with the “Principles of animal care”, publication No. 86-23, revised 1985 of the National Institute of Health, and also with the current laws of the United States.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences and JP Scott Center for Neuroscience, Mind and Behavior, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH, 43403, USA

    Saurabh Sharma, Sheryl Coombs & Paul Patton

  2. Animal Behavior Research Group, Department of Zoology, Oxford University, Oxford,  UK

    Theresa Burt de Perera

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  1. Saurabh Sharma
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  2. Sheryl Coombs
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  3. Paul Patton
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  4. Theresa Burt de Perera
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Correspondence to Sheryl Coombs.

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Sharma, S., Coombs, S., Patton, P. et al. The function of wall-following behaviors in the Mexican blind cavefish and a sighted relative, the Mexican tetra (Astyanax). J Comp Physiol A 195, 225–240 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-008-0400-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-008-0400-9

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