Using an integrative approach to investigate the evolution of behaviour

Abstract

Behaviour is a central focus of interest in biology because it has an impact on several aspects of an organism's life. Evolutionary biologists have realised the advantage of an integrative approach that jointly studies the molecular, cellular and physiological levels of an individual to link them with the organismal behavioural phenotype. First, this mechanistic information helps in understanding physiological and evolutionary constraints acting on the behavioural response to the environment and its evolution. Second, it furthers our understanding of the process of molecular convergent evolution. Finally, we learn about natural variation in molecular, cellular and physiological traits present in wild populations and their underlying genetic basis, which can be a substrate for selection to act on. I illustrate these points using our work on behaviour variation in fishes. The information on the mechanistic bases of behaviour variation in various species and behaviours will contribute to an ecological annotation of genes and to uncover new mechanisms implicated in how this astonishing behavioural diversity arose, is maintained and will evolve.

Receptors rather than signals change in expression in four physiological regulatory networks during evolutionary divergence in threespine stickleback

“…These receptors are expressed in a variety of tissues in fish, including the brain [Pimephales promelas (Giltrow et al 2011)], but their role in the central nervous system is less studied. Our results uncover a potential new association between this receptor and stress physiology, and suggest that the functional implication of their higher expression in more aggressive, more active, less social and less reactive fish (Di Poi et al 2014, 2016 should be further studied. In the glucocorticoid network, we found higher expression of the mc2r receptor in the interrenal glands of freshwater fish.…”

“…The lake is not connected to the ocean, and this population has been isolated from marine ancestors for approximately 10 000 years. Previous studies showed that common environment-reared fish originating from these htr1a 5HT populations differed in behaviours, stress reactivity, transcriptomic response to rearing temperature and cold tolerance (Barrett et al 2011;Di Poi et al 2014, 2016Morris et al 2014).…”

“…Many striking examples of behavioural divergence between populations have been demonstrated, but our knowledge of the molecular mechanisms underlying behavioural evolution following colonization of novel environments is limited (Aubin‐Horth ). Molecules do not act alone but rather form networks of interacting components.…”

Women in evolution – highlighting the changing face of evolutionary biology

“…The research they describe reflects the strength and diversity of evolutionary biology today, regardless of gender. The articles in this special issue span the breadth of areas in evolutionary biology and touch upon many of the hottest topics, including sex chromosome evolution (Charlesworth ), sexual selection (Servedio ; Wellenreuther and Sánchez‐Guillén ), behavioural evolution (Aubin‐Horth ; Charmantier et al. ), evolution of cooperation (Aktipis ), diversification and speciation (Charmantier et al.…”

“…Gillespie () describes her now‐classic work in the Hawaiian archipelago on spider diversification, which spans a range of low levels of ‘nonadaptive radiation’ in some groups (without ecological diversification) to high levels of adaptive radiation (new species formation with ecological diversification). Aubin‐Horth () describes the exciting emergence of ecological genomics as a subfield, which has opened up the black box linking molecules and environmental cues to phenotypic and behavioural variation, focusing on her work on salmonid alternative reproductive tactics.…”