Zebrafish are highly social animals and welfare research confirms that group housing significantly improves their behavioral and physiological welfare compared to isolation.
Zebrafish social welfare research reveals the importance of species-appropriate social structure for behavioral and physiological welfare in this increasingly important laboratory model. Isolated zebrafish are not just behaviorally impaired - their stress physiology is chronically altered in ways that affect neurological function, immune status, and developmental biology relevant to research applications. This means that isolation housing not only harms fish welfare but compromises the translational validity of research conducted on socially deprived animals. The welfare-science alignment is clear: group housing improves both zebrafish welfare and research quality simultaneously. The challenge is that pair or group housing of zebrafish requires more careful monitoring for aggression and disease transmission but is achievable with appropriate management.