Meeting Abstract

93.1  Thursday, Jan. 7  Genetic analysis of variation in schooling behavior among threespine stickleback populations WARK*, A.R.*; GREENWOOD, A.K.; PEICHEL, C.L.; Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle and University of Washington, Seattle; Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle; Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle and University of Washington, Seattle awark@fhcrc.org

Threespine sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) adapted to diverse habitats have evolved extensive variation in a number of behavioral traits, including feeding, courtship, and anti-predator behaviors. Schooling behavior is thought to be an anti-predator behavior in fish, but it has not been extensively studied in sticklebacks. Because the costs and benefits of schooling vary in different ecological conditions, we hypothesized that schooling behavior would differ between marine and freshwater stickleback populations and that this behavioral difference would be genetically controlled. We developed two novel assays (the Open Arena Tournament and the Model School assay) to quantitatively assess schooling behavior in the laboratory in both naturalistic and experimentally-controlled social environments. Using these assays, we show that Japanese Pacific Ocean marine sticklebacks school significantly more strongly than freshwater lake sticklebacks from Paxton Lake, British Columbia. These experiments were performed in fish reared in a common laboratory environment, suggesting a heritable basis to this variation. To characterize the genetic architecture underlying schooling behavior divergence, we are performing a genetic linkage analysis in a Paxton Benthic x Japanese Pacific F2 intercross using these complementary assays. Results of our genetic analysis will be presented.