Learning in fishes: from three-second memory to culture

摘要

Learning plays a pivotal role in the behavioural development of all vertebrates, and fish are no exception. This collection of essays on learning in fishes is timely for at least two reasons. First, it is now over 10 years since the lust substantivesurvey of the role of learning in fish behaviour (Kieffer and Colgan 1992) had been conducted, and the intervening period has witnessed a relative explosion of interest in this topic. James Kieffer and Patrick Colgan, in writing their comprehensive review, were able to draw on some 70 published papers on fish learning, a substantive advance on earlier reviews by Thorpe (1963) and Gleitman and Rozin (1971). In comparison, the articles in this special edition collectively refer to well over 500 such papers, the majority of them being published in the last few years. Both the sheer number of articles and the breadth of the research addressed leaves summarising what is now known about learning in fishes beyond the scope of a single paper, and a challengethat would tax nil but the most wide-ranging of authors. Whether it be a concern with the genetic, neural, physiological, psychological, behavioural, ecological or evolutionary aspects of learning, researchers from a broad range of disciplines are, at long last, giving due recognition to the fact that learning plays a critical role in the development of fish behaviour.