Time-place learning in the zebrafish (Danio rerio)

Animals exhibit activity cycles that repeat over days. The most noteworthy cyclical behaviors are related to forraging, which generally occur at the same times and locations. The synchronization of animal activities via the association of different places at different times for the occurrence of relevant biological events is known as time-place learning (TPL). In the present study, we used zebrafish (Danio rerio) to test time-place learning based on a different stimulus: social reinforcement. Fish were not only able to associate time and place of the social stimulus, but also displayed anticipatory activity prior to the arrival of the stimulus. Furthermore, we show that the group of conspecifics is an relevant stimulus for time-place learning tasks, while other studies have only used food.