ArticleBiology open2022
Beyond bold versus shy: Zebrafish exploratory behavior falls into several behavioral clusters and is influenced by strain and sex.
Article in Biology open, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed.
- Routine metabolic rate is not associated with boldness in zebrafish.Biology open · 2026Article
- Individual Differences in Boldness Influence Working Memory and Stress-Induced Repetitive Behaviors in Zebrafish.The European journal of neuroscience · 2025Article
- Housing and husbandry factors affecting zebrafish novel tank test responses: a global multi-laboratory study.Lab animal · 2025Article
- Does Personality Modulate the Sensitivity to Contaminants? A Case Study with Cadmium and Caffeine.Toxics · 2025Article
- Survival Strategies and Color Preferences of Mandarin Fish (Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Article
- The effects of Arabian jasmine on zebrafish behavior depends on strain, sex, and personality.PloS one · 2025Article
- Behavioural variability and repeatability in adult zebrafish (Danio rerio) using the novel tank dive test.PloS one · 2025Article
- Behavioral neuroscience in zebrafish: unravelling the complexity of brain-behavior relationships.Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2024Review
- Zebrafish (Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Whole-brain mapping in adult zebrafish and identification of a novel tank test functional connectome.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Individual differences in the boldness of female zebrafish are associated with alterations in serotonin function.The Journal of experimental biology · 2024Article
- Zebrafish (bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Individual differences in the boldness of female zebrafish are associated with alterations in serotonin function.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Aging in zebrafish is associated with reduced locomotor activity and strain dependent changes in bottom dwelling and thigmotaxis.PloS one · 2024Article
- Trait sensitivity to stress and cognitive bias processes in fish: A brief overview.Personality neuroscience · 2024Review
- Glucocorticoid receptor regulates protein chaperone, circadian clock and affective disorder genes in the zebrafish brain.Disease models & mechanisms · 2023Article
- A gelatin-based feed for precise and non-invasive drug delivery to adult zebrafish.The Journal of experimental biology · 2023Article
- Identification of nicotine-seeking and avoiding larval zebrafish using a new three-choice behavioral assay.Frontiers in molecular neuroscience · 2023Article
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3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Individual differences in exploratory behavior have been found across a range of taxa and are thought to contribute to evolutionary fitness. Animals that explore more of a novel environment and visit areas of high predation risk are considered bold, whereas animals with the opposite behavioral pattern are shy. Here, we determined whether this bimodal characterization of bold versus shy adequately captures the breadth of behavioral variation in zebrafish or if there are more than these two subtypes. To identify behavioral categories, we applied unsupervised machine to three-dimensional swim traces from over 400 adult zebrafish across four strains (AB, TL, TU, and WIK) and both sexes. We found that behavior stratified into four distinct clusters: previously described bold and shy behavior and two new behavioral types we call wall-huggers and active explorers. Clusters were stable across time and influenced by strain and sex where we found that TLs were shy, female TU fish were bold, male TU fish were active explorers, and male ABs were wall-huggers. Our work suggests that zebrafish exploratory behavior has greater complexity than previously recognized and lays the groundwork for the use of zebrafish in understanding the biological basis of individual differences in behavior.
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