Parallel and nonparallel behavioural evolution in response to parasitism and predation in Trinidadian guppies

Abstract

Natural enemies such as predators and parasites are known to shape intraspecific variability of behaviour and personality in natural populations, yet several key questions remain: (i) What is the relative importance of predation vs. parasitism in shaping intraspecific variation of behaviour across generations? (ii) What are the contributions of genetic and plastic effects to this behavioural divergence? (iii) And to what extent are responses to predation and parasitism repeatable across independent evolutionary lineages? We addressed these questions using Trinidadian guppies (Poecilia reticulata) (i) varying in their exposure to dangerous fish predators and Gyrodactylus ectoparasites for (ii) both wild-caught F0 and laboratory-reared F2 individuals and coming from (iii) multiple independent evolutionary lineages (i.e. independent drainages). Several key findings emerged. First, a population's history of predation and parasitism influenced behavioural profiles, but to different extent depending on the behaviour considered (activity, shoaling or boldness). Second, we had evidence for some genetic effects of predation regime on behaviour, with differences in activity of F2 laboratory-reared individuals, but not for parasitism, which had only plastic effects on the boldness of wild-caught F0 individuals. Third, the two lineages showed a mixture of parallel and nonparallel responses to predation/parasitism, with parallel responses being stronger for predation than for parasitism and for activity and boldness than for shoaling. These findings suggest that different sets of behaviours provide different pay-offs in alternative predation/parasitism environments and that parasitism has more transient effects in shaping intraspecific variation of behaviour than does predation.

Genome-wide analysis of UDP-glycosyltransferase super family in Brassica rapa and Brassica oleracea reveals its evolutionary history and functional characterization

“…In the model plant, Arabidopsis thaliana , more than 120 UGTs encoding genes have been identified, with five UGTs found to be correlated with flavonoid biosynthetic [10–12]. A total of 253 UGTs were found in Panax ginseng transcriptome, and recent works have confirmed the function of UGTs in ginsenoside biosynthesis [13–15]. The genome-wide analysis of UGTs in Flax ( Linum usitatissimum ) led to the identification of 137 UGTs, and subsequent similar works conducted by Sharma et al (2014) yielded 96 UGTs in Chickpea genome [1, 16].…”

Sexual dimorphism modifies habitat‐associated divergence: Evidence from beach and creek breeding sockeye salmon

“…Variation in the extent of parallelism between the sexes has also been shown in other species. For example, variation in the extent of parallelism between the sexes has been previously detected in guppies (Dargent et al., ; Hendry et al., ; Jacquin et al., ) and other live‐bearing fishes (Ingley et al., ; Langerhans & Makowicz, ; Wesner et al., ), although these inferences are complicated by the different ecological and physiological roles played by the sexes. Consistent with previous work in live‐bearing fishes, our results show that although there are often parallel aspects of divergence between the sexes during habitat‐associated divergence, important differences in male and female patterns contribute to overall variation in the extent of parallelism.…”

Evidence for contemporary and historical gene flow between guppy populations in different watersheds, with a test for associations with adaptive traits

“…Previous work on guppies has thus far emphasized strong adaptive divergence among guppy populations in diverse traits such as male color (Endler, 1980;Gotanda & Hendry, 2014;Kemp et al, 2008;Millar et al, 2006), body shape (Burns, Nardo, & Rodd, 2009;Hendry, Kelly, Kinnison, & Reznick, 2006), life history (Reznick, Jv, Rodd, & Ross, 1996), parasite resistance (Fraser & Neff, 2010;Pérez-Jvostov, Hendry, Fussmann, & Scott, 2015;van Oosterhout, Harris, & Cable, 2003), and behavior (Jacquin et al, 2016;. Yet a few studies have also hinted that closely adjacent populations can be more phenotypically similar than expected given their environmental differences (Endler, 1978), while others have failed to find such a signature (Fitzpatrick et al, 2015).…”