A Study of Social Transmission in Juvenile Dicentrarchus Labrax (Pisces, Serranidae), in an Operant Conditioning Situation

Abstract

Abstractjuvenile Dicentrarchus labrax having achieved good or poor performance in a task involving pushing a lever to obtain food served as demonstrators for conspecifics naive to the task. The results show that fish exposed to good demonstrators were subsequently more likely to engage in the same operant act than same-aged fish that observed poor demonstrators. Thus the development of traditions is shown to be possible in small groups of fish of the same age, originating in the appearance of a novel, adaptive behaviour by certain innovative individuals.