Social recognition in sticklebacks: the role of direct experience and habitat cues

The social organisation of animals relies on recognition. However, there are many means by which animals may recognise one another and a variety of cues are available to any individual at any one time. We tested the effects of cues based on direct experience and of cues based on habitat and diet on association decisions in the three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus). Our results show that sticklebacks rapidly acquire association preferences for novel con- and heterospecifics (nine-spined sticklebacks, Pungitius pungitius) which had experienced the same habitat and diet conditioning as themselves over novel con- and heterospecifics which had experienced a different habitat and diet conditioning, a preference which may be based on self-referent matching. Association preferences were observed after only 24 h and were independent of the number of tank mates (treatments with 20 and 100 fish). Evidence for the influence of direct social experience on association preferences was weak and may be confounded by other factors.Communicated by K. Lindström