Extensive Behavioural Divergence following Colonisation of the Freshwater Environment in Threespine Sticklebacks

Type Article
Date 2014-06
Language English
Author(s) Di Poi CaroleORCID1, 2, Lacasse Jennyfer1, 2, Rogers Sean M.3, Aubin-Horth Nadia1, 2
Affiliation(s) 1 : Univ Laval, Dept Biol, Quebec City, PQ G1K 7P4, Canada.
2 : Univ Laval, Inst Biol Integrat & Syst, Quebec City, PQ G1K 7P4, Canada.
3 : Univ Calgary, Dept Biol Sci, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada.
Source Plos One (1932-6203) (Public Library Science), 2014-06 , Vol. 9 , N. 6 , P. e98980 (1-8)
DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0098980
WOS© Times Cited 16
Abstract Colonisation of novel environments means facing new ecological challenges often resulting in the evolution of striking divergence in phenotypes. However, little is known about behavioural divergence following colonisation, despite the predicted importance of the role of behavioural phenotype-environment associations in adaptive divergence. We studied the threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus), a model system for postglacial colonisation of freshwater habitats largely differing in ecological conditions from the ones faced by the descendants of the marine ancestor. We found that common-environment reared freshwater juveniles were less social, more active and more aggressive than their marine counterparts. This behavioural divergence could represent the result of natural selection that acted on individuals following freshwater colonisation, with predation as a key selection agent. Alternatively, the behavioural profile of freshwater juveniles could represent the characteristics of individuals that preferentially invaded freshwater after the glacial retreat, drawn from the standing variation present in the marine population.
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Publisher's official version 8 607 KB Open access
Table S1 Dataset used for the study by Di Poi et al. 4 KB Open access
Table S2. Statistically significant correlations found between behaviours in each population. Correlation coefficients and p-values calculated before and after corrections for multiple... 1 KB Open access
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