Meeting Abstract

P1.31  Sunday, Jan. 4  Effects of different individuals on information transfer in zebrafish groups. VITAL, Cuauhcihuatl*; MARTINS, Emilia P.; Indiana Univeristy, Bloomington cvital@indiana.edu

Fitness of gregarious individuals is greatly influenced by several aspects of group phenotype. For instance, individual food intake is directly related to group foraging success. In this case information transfer plays an important role in group fitness. The faster information is transferred the higher chances individuals within a group have of locating food, escaping predators or acquiring other resources. Little research has been done on what factors influence information transfer in a social group. We explore the role of important individuals in information transfer. First we find important and non-important individuals- as measured by Betweenness Centrality within zebrafish groups. Second we train these individuals on a specific task to be tutors for the rest of their own groups. By removing and training important and non-important individuals we test the relevance of such individuals in transferring new foraging techniques to a zebrafish shoal. Our results suggest that socially important individuals play a more influential role in social learning. Group fitness, thus is greatly influenced by the social organization. Specifically, socially-important individuals play a key role in group fitness in activities such as group foraging.