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A strong genetic correlation underlying a behavioural syndrome disappears during development because of genotype-age interactions.

ABSTRACT: In animal populations, as in humans, behavioural differences between individuals that are consistent over time and across contexts are considered to reflect personality, and suites of correlated behaviours expressed by individuals are known as behavioural syndromes. Lifelong stability of behavioural syndromes is often assumed, either implicitly or explicitly. Here, we use a quantitative genetic approach to study the developmental stability of a behavioural syndrome in a wild population of blue tits. We find that a behavioural syndrome formed by a strong genetic correlation of two personality traits in nestlings disappears in adults, and we demonstrate that genotype-age interaction is the likely mechanism underlying this change during development. A behavioural syndrome may hence change during organismal development, even when personality traits seem to be strongly physiologically or functionally linked in one age group. We outline how such developmental plasticity has important ramifications for understanding the mechanistic basis as well as the evolutionary consequences of behavioural syndromes.

SUBMITTER: Class B

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4590434 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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A strong genetic correlation underlying a behavioural syndrome disappears during development because of genotype-age interactions.

Class Barbara B Brommer Jon E JE

Proceedings. Biological sciences 20150601 1809

In animal populations, as in humans, behavioural differences between individuals that are consistent over time and across contexts are considered to reflect personality, and suites of correlated behaviours expressed by individuals are known as behavioural syndromes. Lifelong stability of behavioural syndromes is often assumed, either implicitly or explicitly. Here, we use a quantitative genetic approach to study the developmental stability of a behavioural syndrome in a wild population of blue t ...[more]

PMID: 26041348

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Project description:Fever implies a significant increase in corporal temperature that aids toward the resolution of infective processes such as viral disease. The majority of vertebrate species are not homeothermic therefore must rely upon the environment for temperature regulation. Here we show that in the zebrafish an artificial viral infection, induced by poly (I:C), induces a fever response regulated by the behavioral choice of temperature. We recorded 12 h of the diurnal cycle in zebrafish previously treated (first 12 hours dark cycle) with the pyrogen, poly (I:C) [10 μg⋅kg-1]. Fish, n=10, were held in a thermal gradient (36-180C) separated into 7 interconnected chambers. Presence or absence of individuals in each chamber was recorded each 15 minutes throughout the 12 hour period. After the experimental period we dissected whole brains for microarray analysis. In monitored zebrafish intraperitoneal treatment with poly (I:C) induced a febrile behaviour with significantly elevated temperature preference (T of about 32ºC) in stark contrast with the observed frequency for saline-injected fish (28ºC). Microarray analyses uncovered significant shifts in transcriptional activity that were highly directed in the poly (I:C)-treated fish housed in the thermal gradient. When compared to gene expression profiles from poly (I:C)-treated fish deprived of a thermal gradient we observed a less intense specific to the poly (I:C) challenge and interestingly observed a scattered generalised stress response. Our results highlight the influence of temperature preference in the development of the immune response in zebrafish. Fever induced gene expression in zebrafish brain was measured at 24 after intra peritoneal injection with 1mg*Kg-1 of Poly (I:C) in zebrafish. Four independent experiments were performed to explore the transcriptomic profile induced by animals injected by Poly (I:C) with/whithout thermal gradient, saline solution (PBS), or control using different animals for each experiment.

Dataset Information

A strong genetic correlation underlying a behavioural syndrome disappears during development because of genotype-age interactions.

Publications

A strong genetic correlation underlying a behavioural syndrome disappears during development because of genotype-age interactions.

Similar Datasets

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