Meeting Abstract

P1.44  Saturday, Jan. 4 15:30  Developmental response to predator-related cues in Kryptolebias marmoratus JAMES, WR*; WHITE, S; EARLEY, RL; Univ. of Alabama; Univ. of Alabama; Univ. of Alabama wrjames@crimson.ua.edu

Exposure to environmental factors during early life can have potent effect on the development of the phenotype, but it can be difficult to disentangle the influences of genetic and environmental components that contribute to phenotypic variation within and among populations. The mangrove rivulus (Kryptolebias marmoratus) can self-fertilize to generate isogenic lineages, which provides the opportunity to explicitly resolve how the environment shapes phenotypic traits. Rivulus’ ecology is not well understood, but the mangrove water snake is thought to be a major predator. Our study investigates the developmental response to predator-related cues in lineages derived from regions with and without snakes. We exposed individuals of four lineages from hatching until one month of age to cues from mangrove water snakes that had been fasted, fed rivulus, or fed heterospecifics. After exposure the individuals were tested for fear and boldness responses and photographed for geometric morphometric analysis. We hypothesized that the phenotypic response would vary among treatments and that lineages derived from areas with snakes would show a more pronounced behavioral and morphological response to predator-related cues than the lineages derived from areas without snakes.