Meeting Abstract
The simple nervous systems and behaviors of sea slugs such as Aplysia californica and Tritonia diomedea make them useful animals for neuroethological research. However, these species must be caught in the wild or raised in large aquaculture facilities. Here, we introduce the nudibranch, Berghia stephanieae, as an experimental system that is easily bred and raised in the lab. The generation time for Berghia is approximately two months, allowing developmental studies to be performed. Furthermore, it is inexpensive to generate hundreds of animals, making it amenable for undergraduate research. We are characterizing behaviors in Berghia to develop a foundation for further research on the neural basis of behavior. Several behaviors are easily observed in the lab, including navigation with visual or chemosensory cues and feeding behavior. Spatial vision had not previously been demonstrated in nudibranchs; we found that Berghia can navigate toward a black stripe outside of a circular arena. Like Aplysia, Berghia exhibits rhythmic head-waving when searching for food. However, unlike either Aplysia or Tritonia, Berghia can locate food in the absence of water flow in both an open arena and a T-maze. Food localization requires the rhinophores, the olfactory organs. We are combining this behavioral work with transcriptomic and connectomic approaches to study the neural basis of these behaviors.
