Meeting Abstract
Individuals often receive information from their environment from multiple sources (population history, parents, and direct experience); therefore animals in natural populations must weigh different sources of information that might not always be in agreement. Here I report a study examining how population history, maternal environment and juvenile experience interact to produce behavioral phenotypes in the Trinidadian guppy (Poecilia reticulata). Mothers from two populations were raised in the lab either with or without predator cues. Offspring were then evenly split and raised either with or without predator cues. I found that in both populations, both maternal effects and juvenile experience produced similar anti-predator phenotypes, suggesting that this plasticity may be adaptive. However, the direction of anti-predator behaviors differed between populations, suggesting interactions between population history and environmental cues. These changes were linked with cortisol adjustments in mothers based on predator experience. Altogether, my results suggest that population history and past selective pressures can influence the relative strength of different sources of information and subsequent behavioral plasticity.
