ORIENTATION BEHAVIOUR IN STICKLEBACKS: MODIFIED BY EXPERIENCE OR POPULATION SPECIFIC?

To investigate the mechanisms underlying preferred spatial information use in Three-spined sticklebacks we reared fish derived from contrasting habitats (pond and river populations) under a range of conditions. The rearing conditions were designed to determine whether the spatial information used by sticklebacks is population specific, whether it is learned or whether it is produced by an interaction between these two factors. Fish reared under different conditions were trained to solve two experimental tasks to determine what spatial information they preferred to use. The results indicate that the fish learned spatial cues relevant to the environment that they were raised in but there was also evidence of a gene by environment interaction that influenced which spatial cues were learned.