Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Qingbo (Spinibarbus sinensis) personalities and their effect on shoaling behavior

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
acta ethologica Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Group-level behavior has important fitness consequences for group-living fish, which might be affected by the personalities of group members. However, the role of group personality on group behavior has seldom been systematically investigated. To test the effect of the personalities of group members on shoaling behavior and the underlying mechanisms, we investigated the activity and boldness personality traits in qingbo (Spinibarbus sinensis) and grouped qingbo shoals into high personality score, low personality score, and randomly selected control groups and measured the shoal-level behavior traits. Compared with the reactive shoal (low activity and boldness), the proactive (high activity and boldness) shoal showed high activity and increased synchronization of speed, suggesting that the shoal-level behavior was affected by the personalities of the shoal members. Interestingly, the variables in the control shoal were midway between those in the high- and low-activity shoals, suggesting that the average activity score might be the most important factor for group-level behavior (average-determined mechanism). However, when qingbo were divided into high- and low-boldness shoals, the control shoal variables were similar to those of the low-boldness shoals, suggesting that a minority of low-boldness individuals might have a dominant effect on shoal-level behavior (minority-determined mechanism). Cohesion showed a more complicated pattern than the other variables, which might be because the conformity of personalities among shoal members had a profound effect on cohesion. This finding suggests that large interindividual differences in personality play a profound effect on group-level behavior, and different mechanisms might provide the precondition for shoals to exhibit great shoal-level diversity. These findings might have important ecological relevance for the survival of group-living fish in habitats with food resource and predation intensity fluctuations.

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.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

Abbreviations

PTM:

Percent time moving

TDM:

Total distance moved

PTMgroup :

PTM of the four shoal members

IID:

The interindividual distance

SV:

The synchronization of speed

ICC:

The intraclass correlation coefficient

References

  • Alain P, Anthony S, Marie-Laure B, Yannick L, Fabrice T, Pascal F (2015) First insight into personality traits in northern pike (Esox lucius) larvae: a basis for behavioral studies of early life stages. Environ Biol Fish 99:105–115

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown C, Irving E (2014) Individual personality traits influence group exploration in a feral guppy population. Behav Ecol 25:95–101

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Budaev SV, Mikheev VN, Pavlova DS (2015) Individual differences in behavior and mechanisms of ecological differentiation on the example of fish. Biol Bull Rev 5:462–479

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cote J, Fogarty S, Weinersmith K, Brodin T, Sih A (2010) Personality traits and dispersal tendency in the invasive mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis). Proc R Soc B Biol Sci 277:1571–1579

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cote J, Fogarty S, Brodin T, Weinersmith K, Sih A (2011) Personality dependent dispersal in the invasive mosquitofish: group composition matters. Proc R Soc B Biol Sci 278:1670e1678

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Delcourt J, Poncin P (2012) Shoals and schools: back to the heuristic definitions and quantitative references. Rev Fish Biol Fisher 22:595_619

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dyer JRG, Johansson A, Helbing D, Couzin ID, Krause J (2009) Leadership, consensus decision making and collective behaviour in humans. Philos Trans R Soc Lond Ser B Biol Sci 364:781–789

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fu SJ (2016) The effects of group size on schooling behavior in two cyprinid fish species. Aquat Biol 25:165–172

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harcourt JL, Ang TZ, Sweetman G, Johnstone RA, Manica A (2009) Social feedback and the emergence of leaders and followers. Curr Biol 19:248–252

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Heg D, Schürch R, Roghenberger S (2011) Behavioral type and growth rate in a cichlid fish. Behav Ecol 22:1227–1233

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Herbert-Read JE, Perna A, Mann RP, Schaerf TM, Sumpter DJT, Ward AJW (2011) Inferring the rules of interaction of shoaling fish. PNAS 108:18726–18731

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Ioannou CC, Dall SRX (2016) Individuals that are consistent in risk-taking benefit during collective foraging. Sci Rep 6:33991

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Jolles JW, Fleetwood-Wilson A, Nakayama S, Stumpe MC, Johnstone RA, Manica A (2015) The role of social attraction and its link with boldness in the collective movements of three-spined sticklebacks. Anim Behav 99:147–153

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Jolles JW, Boogert NJ, Sridhar VH, Couzin ID, Manica A (2017) Consistent individual differences drive collective behavior and group functioning of schooling fish. Curr Biol 27:2862–2868

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Jolles JW, Laskowski KL, Boogert NJ, Manica A (2018) Repeatable group differences in the collective behaviour of stickleback shoals across ecological contexts. Proc R Soc B Biol Sci 285:20172629

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Killen SS, Fu C, Wu QY, Wang YX, Fu SJ (2016) The relationship between metabolic rate and sociability is altered by food deprivation. Funct Ecol 30:1358–1365

    Article  Google Scholar 

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

    Google Scholar 

  • Le Galliard JF, Paquet M, Cisel M, Montes-Poloni L (2013) Personality and the pace-of-life syndrome: variation and selection on exploration, metabolism and locomotor performances. Funct Ecol 27:136–144

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liu S, Fu SJ (2017) Effects of food availability on metabolism, behaviour, growth and their relationships in a triploid carp. J Exp Biol 220:4711–4719

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Mazué GPF, Godin JGJ (2015) Boldness-exploration behavioural syndrome: interfamily variability and repeatability of personality traits in the young of the convict cichlid (Amatitlania siquia). Behav Ecol 26:900–908

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Miller N, Gerlai R (2012) Automated tracking of zebrafish shoals and the analysis of shoaling behavior. In: Kalueff AV, Stewart AM (eds) Zebrafish protocols for neurobehavioral research. Humana Press, New York, pp 217–230

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Pérez-Escudero A, Vicente-Page J, Hinz RC, Arganda S, de Polavieja GG (2014) idTracker: tracking individuals in a group by automatic identification of unmarked animals. Nat Methods 11:743–748

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Planas-SitjàI, Nicolis SC, Sempo G, Deneubourg J-L (2018) The interplay between personalities and social interactions affects the cohesion of the group and the speed of aggregation. PLoS One 13:e0201053

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Pruitt JN, Riechert SE (2011) How within-group behavioural variation and task efficiency enhance fitness in a social group. Proc Biol Sci 278:1209–1215

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Réale D, Garant D, Humphries MM, Bergeron P, Careau V, Montiglio PO (2010) Personality and the emergence of the pace-of-life syndrome concept at the population level. P Roy Soc B Biol Sci 365:4051–4063

    Google Scholar 

  • Shaw E (1978) Schooling fishes. Am Sci 66:166–175

    Google Scholar 

  • Sih A, Bell A, Johnson JC (2004) Behavioral syndromes: an ecologicaland evolutionary overview. Trends Ecol Evol 19:372–378

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith BR, Blumstein DT (2008) Fitness consequences of personality: a meta-analysis. Behav Ecol 19:448–455

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Spiegel O, Leu S, Bull CM, Sih A (2017) What's your move? Movement as a link between personality and spatial dynamics in animal populations. Ecol Lett 20:3–18

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tang ZH, Wu H, Huang Q, Kuang L, Fu SJ (2017) The shoaling behavior of two cyprinid species in conspecific and heterospecific groups. Peer J 5:e3397

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tang ZH, Wu QY, Fu SJ (2018) Inspection behaviour and inter-individual cooperation in juvenile qingbo: the effects of prior predator exposure and food deprivation. J Ethol 36:181–190

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Villegas-Ríos D, Réale D, Freitas C, Moland E, Olsen EM (2018) Personalities influence spatial responses to environmental fluctuations in wild fish. J Anim Ecol 87:1309–1319

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Ward AJW, Thomas P, Hart PJB, Krause J (2004) Correlates of boldness in three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus). Behav Ecol Sociobiol 55:561–568

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wolf M, Weissing FJ (2012) Animal personalities: consequences for ecology and evolution. Trends Ecol Evol 27:452–460

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

This study was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC 31670418).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Evolutionary Physiology and Behavior, Chongqing Key Laboratory of Animal Biology, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing, 401331, China

    Zhong-Hua Tang & Shi-Jian Fu

Authors
  1. Zhong-Hua Tang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Shi-Jian Fu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shi-Jian Fu.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.

Informed consent

This article does not contain any studies with human participants.

Additional information

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Electronic supplementary material

ESM 1

(XLSX 32 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Tang, ZH., Fu, SJ. Qingbo (Spinibarbus sinensis) personalities and their effect on shoaling behavior. acta ethol 22, 135–144 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10211-019-00321-x

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10211-019-00321-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation