Refuge Tracking in Weakly Electric Fish Across 54 Sensory Landscapes

This dataset contains raw behavioral tracking data from two species of weakly electric fish (Apteronotus albifrons and Eigenmannia virescens) performing a closed-loop refuge tracking task. The data captures the longitudinal position of the fish and the moving refuge across 54 unique sensory conditions, designed to modulate the signal-to-noise ratio (salience) of the environment.

Experimental Subjects

Total Subjects: 10 Individuals.

Species 1: Apteronotus albifrons.

N = 5 individuals.

ID Labels: Ankara, Antalya, İstanbul, İzmir, Mersin

Species 2: Eigenmannia virescens.

N = 5 individuals.

ID Labels: Amasra, Ardahan, Erzincan, Gaziantep, Samsun

Each file is a standard Comma-Separated Values (.csv) file representing a single experimental trial.

File Columns

The files do not contain headers. The column arrangement is as follows:

Column
Variable
Description
Units

1
refuge_position
The longitudinal position of the moving shuttle/refuge (r(t)).
pixels

2
fish_position
The longitudinal position of the fish (y(t)).
pixels

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Note on Time: Time stamps are not included in the columns to save space. Data was recorded at a fixed sampling rate. Sampling Rate: 25 Hz (frames per second).

Experimental Conditions (The 54 Conditions)

The dataset covers a full factorial design spanning 54 unique sensory landscapes (3×3×3×2=54).

Variables:

Illumination (3 Levels):

Light: ~300–500 lux (High visual salience)

Dim: ~20–50 lux

Dark: 0 lux (IR illumination only; No visual salience)

Conductivity (3 Levels):

Low: <50 μS/cm (High electrosensory salience)

Medium: ~300 μS/cm

High: ~700 μS/cm (Low electrosensory salience/Jamming)

Refuge Length (3 Levels):

7 cm

14 cm

21 cm

Structure (2 Levels):

Windowed: Refuge contains longitudinal slots (visual/electric edges).

Non-windowed: Solid tube.