Meeting Abstract

89.8  Monday, Jan. 6 15:15  Hormones and parental care in fishes KNAPP, R.*; CURETON II, J.C.; BROUGHTON, R.E.; Univ. of Oklahoma; Univ. of Oklahoma; Univ. of Oklahoma rknapp@ou.edu

Although John Wingfield is best known for his groundbreaking work in avian environmental endocrinology, for his dissertation research he examined seasonal changes of steroid hormones in a flatfish, the plaice Pleuronectes platessa (Wingfield and Grimm 1976, 1977). The methodological approach he developed in that research has greatly facilitated advances in our understanding of environmental and behavioral endocrinology in all vertebrate clades over the subsequent decades. In this presentation, we will summarize the current state of our understanding of hormonal mediation of parental care in bony fishes in the context of the new phylogeny and recent reclassification of this clade (Broughton et al. 2013, Betancur-R et al. 2013; see also poster by Cureton et al. at this conference). We focus on several species that have been relatively well-studied in this regard. In particular, we examine whether endocrine mediation of paternal behavior differs between species in which courtship and parental care are exhibited sequentially versus simultaneously. We will conclude by identifying fruitful avenues for future research into endocrine contributions to the expression of parental care in fishes.