Allometric model of brain morphology of Hemiculter leucisculus and its variation along climatic gradients

Abstract

Prior studies on Hemiculter leucisculus, which is a widespread native fish in China, mainly focused on its growth, feeding habits, and individual fecundity, but few have investigated the brain. In this research, we explored the developmental patterns of the Hemiculter leucisculus brain and found the brain showed allometry through sample time points and three age groups. At the same time, we found that the brain varied along climatic gradients. The volumes of the olfactory bulbs, telencephalic lobes, optic tectum, corpus cerebelli, and total brain in the south were larger than those in the north, while the volume of the hypothalamus in the north was larger than in the south.This study provides a view for the in-depth study of the acclimatized mechanism of the teleost brain, lays a foundation for the further study of evolutionary ecology, and provides a reference for the phenotypic plasticity of the teleost brain.

Growth Patterns and Growth-Axis Gene Expressions in Sexual Dimorphism of Silurus asotus Linnaeus, 1758

“…Allometric relationships between body properties are helpful for a lot of studies, such as estimation of biomass, growth, population structure, and bioenergetic modeling studies [50]. Te various brain size-body length allometries could refect the climate changes [51]. However, there need to be more knowledge on the allometric analysis between sexes at diferent early development stages, which could help recognize the potential diferent growth patterns between males and females in S. asotus.…”