Neuro-genetic plasticity of Caenorhabditis elegans behavioral thermal tolerance.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Animal responses to thermal stimuli involve intricate contributions of genetics, neurobiology and physiology, with temperature variation providing a pervasive environmental factor for natural selection. Thermal behavior thus exemplifies a dynamic trait that requires non-trivial phenotypic summaries to appropriately capture the trait in response to a changing environment. To characterize the deterministic and plastic components of thermal responses, we developed a novel micro-droplet assay of nematode behavior that permits information-dense summaries of dynamic behavioral phenotypes as reaction norms in response to increasing temperature (thermal tolerance curves, TTC).

Results

We found that C. elegans TTCs shift predictably with rearing conditions and developmenta

SUBMITTER: Stegeman GW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6558720 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature