| Many animals exhibit behavioral plasticity as they move between habitats seasonally, reside in fluctuating environments, or respond to human-induced environmental change. In my dissertation, I investigate why animals behave plastically, asking specifically about the possible impacts of (1) recent habitat experience, (2) sex, timing and context and (3) changes in sensory systems on social behavior, using zebrafish, an important biomedical model organism, to test my hypotheses. Specifically, I investigated how recent experience impacts social behavior and visual motor behavior. First, I found that zebrafish with two weeks of experience in more complex environments charged each other more often and shoaled more closely together than did fish with experience in less complex environments. Second, I found that females were primarily responsible for the habitat effect, charging other fish more often in less complex arenas whether in dyads or in larger groups. These female charges decreased over time and were higher when the groups were first introduced to more complex environments than when re-measured two weeks later. Third, I found evidence for sex differences in vision, with females responding more strongly to visual stimuli than did males. Although I found no evidence that exposure to a more complex environment influenced sensory sensitivity, I found strong population-level differences between two wild populations of zebrafish. My results emphasize the persistent impact of the physical environment on adult social behavior, particularly in females; suggesting the importance of behavioral plasticity and its role in creating long-term change. |
