Meeting Abstract
Complex social behavior evolved independently many times, with monogamy as a prominent example. Certain neurochemical and neuroendocrine pathways have ancient origins and likely play vital roles in behavioral regulation across distantly related taxa. We hypothesized that akin to the now established genetic toolkit, as novel behavioral traits arose independently in diverse lineages, similar neural and molecular mechanisms were likely recruited repeatedly. Much progress has been made towards unraveling the genes and regulatory sequences that govern the development and function of brain circuits supporting social behavior in a few species, but much is still unknown. Here we use RNA-seq to compare whole genome gene expression profiles across brains of monogamous and non-monogamous male Microtus voles, Peromyscus mice, passerine birds, dendrobatid frogs, and cichlid fishes. We find that genes highly up- or down-regulated in monogamous species of one clade also tend to be highly up- or down-regulated in the monogamous species of another clade. Genes with concordant expression patterns across clades were involved in signal transduction and neural development and plasticity. These results suggest that a core network of genes were recruited repeatedly and independently in these convergent evolutionary transitions to monogamy.
