Sensory ecology of ostariophysan alarm substances

Abstract

Chemical communication of predation risk has evolved multiple times in fish species, with conspecific alarm substance (CAS) being the most well understood mechanism. CAS is released after epithelial damage, usually when prey fish are captured by a predator and elicits neurobehavioural adjustments in conspecifics which increase the probability of avoiding predation. As such, CAS is a partial predator stimulus, eliciting risk assessment-like and avoidance behaviours and disrupting the predation sequence. The present paper reviews the distribution and putative composition of CAS in fish and presents a model for the neural processing of these structures by the olfactory and the brain aversive systems. Applications of CAS in the behavioural neurosciences and neuropharmacology are also presented, exploiting the potential of model fish [e.g., zebrafish Danio rerio, guppies Poecilia reticulata, minnows Phoxinus phoxinus) in neurobehavioural research.

Keywords: Ostariophysi; alarm signals; alarm substance; disturbance signals; fish.