Schooling and learning: early social environment predicts social learning ability in the guppy, Poecilia reticulata

Social behaviour is extremely widespread in the animal kingdom and has a heritable component in many species. However, the degree to which social behaviour is phenotypically plastic and influenced by conditions individuals experience during early ontogeny is less well understood. Using the guppy as a model species, we examined the importance of early social environment upon the development of a number of social behaviours. We reared guppies at relatively low and high conspecific densities to investigate how early experience impacted shoaling behaviour and social learning ability in this species. Guppies reared at low densities had a significantly higher shoaling tendency than guppies reared at higher densities. Furthermore, individuals reared at low densities located a food resource more often and quicker than individuals reared at high densities in a foraging maze trial with trained demonstrators. After 8 consecutive days of maze trials we removed the demonstrators to investigate social learning skills. Guppies reared at low densities located food faster alone than guppies reared at high densities, implying that they were more adept at socially learning foraging information. This intriguing relationship between early social environment and the development of shoaling behaviour and social learning skills may have considerable implications for captive breeding programs in conservation and aquaculture.