Bolder and Brighter? Exploring Correlations Between Personality and Cognitive Abilities Among Individuals Within a Population of Wild Zebrafish, Danio rerio

Abstract

Within populations, individual differences in behavioral and cognitive traits are dependent on the habitat and specific contexts, such as the presence of a predator or other risks. The ability to show variable responses to changing conditions can be of immense survival advantage to organisms. We studied individual differences in specific personality traits, such as boldness, exploration, and spatial ability, and the effect of these traits on learning ability and memory in the presence of a predatory threat, among wild caught zebrafish (Danio rerio). Under laboratory conditions, individuals were trained to perform a simple navigation task, and their performance, exploration, boldness traits were measured, along with learning and memory abilities under two contexts (i.e., in the presence and absence of a predator). Our results revealed that fish showed a clear decline in emergence time, exploration time, and feeding latency over trials, indicative of learning, and further tests for memory also showed memory retention. While the presence of a predator increased emergence time and latencies for navigating, indicating declines in boldness and exploration, these were found to be correlated to different personalities among the individuals and dependent on their sex. While females tended to be bolder and learned the spatial task faster, they showed lower memory retention abilities than males. Personality traits were also found to affect cognitive abilities among individuals. In general, the presence of a predator decreased performance latencies. However, bolder individuals were less affected and emerged more quickly from the refuge chamber than shy individuals. Our results point to the complex interplay of ecological context along with inherent correlations across personality traits that decide the overall personality and cognitive responses among individuals even within populations. These findings thus highlight the importance of an inclusive approach that combines personality and cognition studies for understanding variations within populations.

Effect of Sex and Reproductive Status on Inhibitory Control and Social Cognition in the Domestic Dog (Canis familiaris)

“…‘Boldness’ is usually associated with assertiveness, exploratory activity, risk-taking, and interest in novel environments, objects, and individuals, whereas ‘shyness’ tends to be associated with cautiousness, timidity, and fear of novelty. Male dogs are generally bolder than females [ 76 , 77 ], and boldness can have an effect on various behavioral and cognitive traits in dogs and other species [ 78 , 79 , 80 , 81 ]. According to several studies, female dogs are also more likely to be fearful or anxious than males [ 29 ], and anxiety and stress might also affect performance in cognitive tasks [ 82 , 83 ].…”

Sex and Population Drive Interindividual Variations in a Cognitive Task Across Three Populations of Wild Zebrafish

“…Studies on chimpanzees, capuchins, and zebra finches have shown that there are sex differences in personality (Buirski et al, 1978;Schuett and Dall, 2009;Manson and Perry, 2013). These differences would increase the overall variability in behavior across the species, since males and females are inherently different from each other, as was also shown in a previous study (Daniel and Bhat, 2020). However, studies have also indicated that not all species or populations differ in personality across sexes (Budaev, 1999;Harrison et al, 2021).…”

“…Although repeated testing is required to study consistency over time for all behaviors, most studies do not take habituation or improvement in task performance into account. Our previous study that explored the relationship between personality and cognition in wild-caught zebrafish discovered correlations between the two but did not test for consistency in behavior over repeated trials (Daniel and Bhat, 2020).…”

Color Discrimination Provides Insight into the Relationship between Personality Cognition and Brain Morphology in the Western Mosquitofish (<b><i>Gambusia affinis</i></b>)

“…CB hypothesis suggests that the individuals with larger brains have better cognitive abilities to cope with different changes in the environment, thereby improving their survival rate (Sol, 2009, van der Bijl et al, 2015, Gu et al, 2017. Additionally, in the study of cognitive abilities, most research focuses on the study of learning and memory abilities (Kotrschal and Taborsky, 2010, Baker and Wong, 2019, Silveira et al, 2019, Daniel and Bhat, 2020. Both learning and memory can improve individual survival (Kaneko et al, 2019, Silveira et al, 2019.…”