Biology subjects

Christopher B Cunningham

Publications and source records attributed to Christopher B Cunningham.

2 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2016

Ethological principles predict the neuropeptides co-opted to influence parenting.

Ethologists predicted that parental care evolves by modifying suitable behavioural precursors in the asocial ancestor, such as nest building, defensive and aggressive behaviours, and potentially shared resources. From this, we predicted that the evolved mechanistic changes would reside in genetic pathways underlying these behavioural precursors. We tested this by measuring differential expression of neuropeptides in female Nicrophorus vespilloides Parenting in this species is extensive and complex as caring adults regurgitate food to begging, dependent offspring. We identified neuropeptides associated with mating, feeding, aggression, and social interactions by sampling females in different behavioural states: solitary, actively parenting, or post-parenting and solitary. We measured peptide abundance in adult female brains and identified 130 peptides belonging to 17 neuropeptides. Of these 17, seven were differentially expressed. Six of the seven were up-regulated during parenting. None of the identified neuropeptides have previously been associated with parental care, but all have known roles in the behavioural precursors. Two, tachykinin and sulfakinin, influence multiple pathways. Our study supports the prediction that appropriate behavioural precursors are likely targets of selection during the evolution of parenting. Evolutionary principles predicted neuropeptides influencing social behaviour, and our results provide several new candidate neuropeptides underpinning parenting.

Genetics↗

bioRxiv2015

The Nicrophorus vespilloides genome and methylome, a beetle with complex social behavior

Testing for conserved and novel mechanisms underlying phenotypic evolution requires a diversity of genomes available for comparison spanning multiple independent lineages. For example, complex social behavior in insects has been investigated primarily with eusocial lineages, nearly all of which are Hymenoptera. If conserved genomic influences on sociality do exist, we need data from a wider range of taxa that also vary in their levels of sociality. Here we present information on the genome of the subsocial beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides, a species long used to investigate evolutionary questions of complex social behavior. We used this genome to address two questions. First, does life history predict overlap in gene models more strongly than phylogenetic groupings? Second, like other insects with highly developed social behavior but unlike other beetles, does N. vespilloides have DNA methylation? We found the overlap in gene models was similar between N. vespilloides and all other insect groups regardless of life history. Unlike previous studies of beetles, we found strong evidence of DNA methylation, which allows this species to be used to address questions about the potential role of methylation in social behavior. The addition of this genome adds a coleopteran resource to answer questions about the evolution and mechanistic basis of sociality.

Genomics↗