Oh little spined fish,
your habitat matters for
orienteering.
Animals navigating their environment may use a number of different spatial cues to find their way around, including the geometric structure of the environment or global landmarks. But some species are found in multiple habitat types where different cues might be more effective for navigation.
Three-spined sticklebacks live in rivers and ponds, environments which differ in terms of structure and rate of environmental change. When tested in an aquatic maze, sticklebacks collected from rivers used geometric and global cues to learn the maze, whereas sticklebacks collected from ponds only used geometric cues to navigate the maze. Within this one species of fish there appear to be multiple methods of navigation depending on the habitat in which the fish are found. Brydges et al, 2008.