The behavioral origins of novelty: did increased aggression lead to scale-eating in pupfishes?

ABSTRACT: Behavioral changes in a new environment are often assumed to precede the origins of evolutionary novelties. Here, we examined whether an increase in aggression is associated with a novel scale-eating trophic niche within a recent radiation of Cyprinodon pupfishes endemic to San Salvador Island, Bahamas. We measured aggression using multiple behavioral assays and used transcriptomic analyses to identify differentially expressed genes in aggression and other behavioral pathways across 3 sympatric species in the San Salvador radiation (generalist, snail-eating specialist, and scale-eating specialist) and 2 generalist outgroups. Surprisingly, we found increased behavioral aggression and differential expression of aggression-related pathways in both the scale-eating and snail-eating spec

SUBMITTER: St John ME 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6450202 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Mar-Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature