The development of social behavior

Zebrafish are highly social animals that exhibit social behaviors early in their development. We review the literature on the developmental timelines and experience-dependent components of zebrafish social behavior, address the strengths and limitations of different assays used to examine the ontogeny of social behavior, and discuss how zebrafish development may be extrapolated to the developmental trajectories observed in other species. We propose a gradual development of social interaction in zebrafish, similar to humans and other animals, in which social behaviors of increasing complexity occur at distinct developmental stages