Meeting Abstract

P3.52  Thursday, Jan. 6  Predator evasion in zebrafish is mediated by the lateral line system. CARDENAS, G.S.*; STEWART, W.J; MCHENRY, M.J.; Univ. of California, Irvine; Univ. of California, Irvine; Univ. of California, Irvine cardenag@uci.edu

The ability to sense water flow plays a key role in a variety of fish behaviors. The flow created by prey swimming in the dark can be detected by the lateral line system of a fish predator. However, it is not clear whether flow can alert fish prey to a predator’s approach. We performed experiments that exposed larval zebrafish (Danio rerio) to predatory adult zebrafish. Adults attempted to feed on larvae with suction-feeding strikes and larvae often evaded these strikes with a fast-start startle response. We found that ablating the lateral line system of larvae diminished their ability to successfully evade feeding strikes. For example, adults required 5 times as many strikes to capture a larva with a functioning lateral line as compared to a larva with the lateral line ablated. In contrast, ablating the lateral line system in adults had a negligible effect on their ability to capture prey. Therefore, flow sensing is important for predator evasion, but is unnecessary for prey localization in zebrafish.