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| Lost in space: The cross-species effect of personality composition on maze exploration |
| Tanya T. Shoot, Noam Miller. Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada |
Researchers often use mazes to drive animals to make sequences of decisions, which could lead to reward or punishment. Much of the work on animals navigating mazes has focused on solitary animals. Yet most species in the wild explore in groups. We addressed how to characterize a group of animals exploring a maze by creating metrics to describe their collective decisions. We measured the personalities (boldness, sociability, and aggression) of zebrafish (Danio rerio) and guppies (Poecilia reticulata). Groups of known personality compositions were then placed in a novel maze with while their movement was tracked. The proportion of the maze explored correlated with variability in cohesion for both species. In guppies, as the proportion explored increased, the variability in cohesion decreased, whereas for zebrafish this trend was reversed. The proportion explored was positively correlated with variability in shyness of zebrafish. These results show that personality composition matters for exploration, and that these effects depend on species ecology. Our study highlights the importance of creating standardized and detailed metrics of group behaviour in mazes. |