Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 288, Issue 1953, Pages -Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2021.0603
Keywords
neurogenesis; cognition; PCNA; Kryptolebias marmoratus; dorsolateral pallium; hippocampus
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Funding
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Canada Graduate Scholarship
- NSERC
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Exposure to terrestrial environments can influence the neural plasticity and spatial learning ability of amphibious fishes, leading to improvements in certain spatial learning markers. Additionally, fish with more terrestrial tendencies show increased cell proliferation in the dorsolateral pallium, indicating potential cognitive advantages.
Amphibious fishes transition between aquatic and terrestrial habitats, and must therefore learn to navigate two dramatically different environments. We used the amphibious killifish Kryptolebias marmoratus to test the hypothesis that the spatial learning ability of amphibious fishes would be altered by exposure to terrestrial environments because of neural plasticity in the brain region linked to spatial cognition (dorsolateral pallium). We subjected fish to eight weeks of fluctuating air-water conditions or terrestrial exercise before assessing spatial learning using a bifurcating T-maze, and neurogenesis in the dorsolateral pallium by immunostaining for proliferating cell nuclear antigen. In support of our hypothesis, we found that air-water fluctuations and terrestrial exercise improved some markers of spatial learning. Moreover, air-water and exercised fish had 39% and 46% more proliferating cells in their dorsolateral pallium relative to control fish, respectively. Overall, our findings suggest that fish with more terrestrial tendencies may have a cognitive advantage over those that remain in water, which ultimately may influence their fitness in both aquatic and terrestrial settings. More broadly, understanding the factors that promote neural and behavioural plasticity in extant amphibious fishes may provide insights into how ancestral fishes successfully colonized novel terrestrial environments before giving rise to land-dwelling tetrapods.
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