MARKS, C.*; BAGATTO, B.; MOORE, F.B.-G.; University of Akron; University of Akron; University of Akron: Developmental Environment Alters Conditional Aggression in Zebrafish

Many vertebrates display developmental plasticity for a wide variety of traits. In these plastic traits the developmental environment often influences the direction of development. Such plasticity is often assumed to be adaptive. Similarly many behavioral traits are plastic across environments. In those cases the behavioral response to a given stimulus will be conditional on the environment in which the animal sees that stimulus. In a varying environment selection should favor those individuals that have the most appropriate behavior for each environment. In this study we test to see if environmentally conditional response to a stimulus is itself a developmentally plastic trait. We reared zebrafish (Danio rerio) from eggs in continuously both hypoxic, and normoxic conditions. We then tested aggression levels of fish from each developmental treatment in both environments. We find that that developmental environment and the stimulus environment are not directly related to aggression level. Instead the conditionality of the response is itself dependent on the developmental environment. This developmental plasticity by behavioral plasticity interaction adds another level of difficulty in understanding the adaptive significance of many traits.