Immune challenge changes social behaviour in the Guppy (Poecilia reticulata)

Increased exposure to pathogens is often considered to be one of the most significant costs of group living. As a result, animals typically avoid close association with individuals that manifest symptoms of disease. The question remains, however, whether avoidance behaviours are mediated by effects relating specifically to the disease itself, or through recognition of more general sickness behaviours that emerge from the activity of the immune system in response to infection. Here we examined the effects of an immune challenge, induced through exposure to bacterial lipopolysaccharides (LPS), on individual and social behaviour in female guppies (Poecilia reticulata). We found that in a binary choice presentation, healthy focal individuals showed a strong preference to associate with stimulus shoals of saline-injected fish rather than stimulus shoals of LPS-injected fish.  In a subsequent examination of group-level dynamics, shoals of LPS-injected females were more dispersed than similar ..., Study Species
We used the guppy (Poecilia reticulata) as our study species because it is a widely used model species in behavioural ecology and physiology studies. For the present study we used only females because of their greater shoaling tendency and to avoid the confounding effects of courtship and mating behaviour. Fish used in the present study were adult females measuring 20-30 mm sourced from a feral population of guppies in Darwin, NT, Australia. Fish used in the experiments were housed in 90L aquaria where they were kept at 25°C on a 12:12 light:dark cycle. Fish were fed daily ad libitum with commercially available fish flakes (Nutrafin). 
Immune Challenge
Females were randomly assigned to either LPS or control groups (LPS-injected: N = 60, Control: N = 60). All fish were lightly anaesthetised using a clove oil solution (50mg/L) and then weighed at the time of injection. Fish assigned to the LPS treatment were injected intramuscularly in the dorsal region at a dosage of 10mg ..., , # Immune Challenge Changes Social Behaviour in the Guppy (Poecilia reticulata)

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.zcrjdfnk0](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.zcrjdfnk0)
The dataset contains data from an experiment examining the effects of LPS exposure on 1) the social interactions and 2) collective behaviour in the female guppy (Poecilia reticulata). Experiment 1 examined whether unexposed fish preferred to associated with control or LPS exposed stimulus shoals, using a binary choice test. It was found that focal individuals significantly prefer to associated with control stimulus shoals. Experiment 2 examined the collective behaviour of exposed and unexposed shoals, and found that groups of LPS exposed fish showed reduced group cohesion.

## Description of the data and file structure

There are two data files, one containing the data from (1) the binary choice experiment and (2) the collective behaviour experiment. The data are laid out as follows:

1\. Binary Choice Experiment \(file name L...