1. Effects of school size of neon tetras on their response to the presence of a zebra fish Kelsey and Jenna

2. Purpose of the experiment Look at schooling behaviour in neon tetras in the presence of a predator, measured in terms of distance from a predator

3. Overview Background Information Hypothesis Materials Methods Results Discussion Conclusions

4. Background Information Schooling: anti-predator strategy – Predator confusion – More fish reduces individual’s chance of attack – More energy invested in feeding and mating

5. Background information Neon Tetras (Cheirodon innessi) – Small, bright, vulnerable to predation Zebra fish (Danio rerio) -Aggressive -Territorial

6. Background Information Neon tetras display schooling behaviour Zheng et. al. – Presence of unfamiliar object – Increase in school size, decrease in timidity Darting Time between feeding Sloman et. al. – Presence of aggressive fish – Increase in schooling

7. Hypothesis The neon tetras would remain further away from the zebra fish when the neon tetras were present in a small school compared to a large group

8. Materials Dip net Aquarium 500mL Jar Neon tetras Zebra fish

9. Materials The Aquarium: 1234

10. Materials The Aquarium: Water temperature maintained at 20⁰C

11. Methods Neon tetras placed in aquarium – School sizes: 2 and 8 – Acclimation period of 3 minutes Jar containing a zebra fish added in section 4

12. Methods Scan sampling – Neon tetras in each section recorded every 30 seconds – Total of 15 minutes – 10 replicates for each school size – Control Empty jar 5 replicates for each school size

13. Results Small school:

14. Results Small school: – Chi-square analysis Experimental: X 2 (3)= 52.4, p< 0.05 Control: X 2 (3)= 38.3, p< 0.05 Significant preference for section 3 – Mann-Whitney U p >0.9999 Insignificant difference between control and experimental

15. Results Large school:

16. Results Large school: – Chi-square analysis Experimental: X 2 (3)= 45.3, p< 0.05 Control: X 2 (3)= 12.0, p< 0.05 Significant preference for section 3 – Mann-Whitney U p =0.8857 Insignificant difference between control and experimental

17. Discussion Due to insignificant difference between control and experimental, hypothesis could not be accepted or rejected Jar was seen as a novel object – Saxby et. al. Higher prevalence of darting in presence of unfamiliar object when in small schools

18. Discussion Predator did not cause neon tetras to stay away Possible reasons: – Wanted to school with the zebra fish – Zebra fish was not threatening enough Zebra fish normally school Separation by the jar – Curiosity of the neon tetras

19. Discussion Future avenues of research: – Looking at darting behaviour – Use a more aggressive species Ex: Angelfish – Using a model predator – Trials without the jar – Collecting more data

20. Conclusions No significant difference in the response to the empty jar versus the predator Neon tetras were attracted to the jar, despite the size of the school Future improvements to the data collection could provide more useful results