Group size influences feeding behavior and the expression of appetite, stress, and neurotransmitter-related transcript expression in tiger barb (Puntigrus tetrazona)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Tiger barbs (Puntigrus tetrazona) are typical shoaling fish that can become stressed and aggressive when kept in small groups. To examine whether group size affects feeding, fish were housed in groups of 1, 2, 4, or 8 individuals per tank and monitored over a 10-day period. Overall feeding behavior, latency to feed, and the amount of food consumed were assessed daily. After 10 days under these conditions, fish were sampled for intestine and brain for transcript expression analyses. Genes examined included appetite regulators such as neuropeptide Y-npy, orexin and melanin-concentrating hormone-mch in the brain and cholecystokinin-cck and ghrelin in the intestine. We also analyzed brain expression of hormones related to social behavior and stress (oxytocin-oxt, corticotrophin-releasing factor-crf and thyrotropin-releasing hormone-trh) and genes related to the synthesis of serotonin (tryptophan hydroxylase-tph) and dopamine (tyrosine hydroxylase-th) and epinephrine (dopamine-β-hydroxylase- dbh). Isolated fish consumed significantly less food and exhibited longer latency to feed compared to all other groups. Fish housed in pairs also showed reduced intake and longer feeding latency relative to those in groups of 4. In the intestine, ghrelin expression was elevated in isolated fish relative to those in larger groups, while no differences were observed in ccka or cckb expression. In the brain, expression of orexigenic neuropeptides (npy, mch, and orexin) was higher in isolated and pair-housed fish compared to those in groups of 4 or 8. Expression of stress- and neurotransmitter-related genes (crf, trh, th, and tph1) was also significantly elevated in isolated fish. No significant group-size effects were found for oxt, tph2, dbh, or cart expression. Overall, our results suggest that small group sizes, particularly isolation, impair feeding behavior and upregulate orexigenic and stress-related gene expression, highlighting the importance of social environment in regulating physiological and behavioral responses in shoaling fish.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".