Project name: Myodes glareolus

Description: Here, we use a unique laboratory model of vertebrate adaptive radiation to investigate genetic basis of the response to selection for predatory behavior and compare it with response to selection for aerobic capacity reported in an earlier work. After 13 generations of selection for increased frequency of predatory behavior, the proportion of bank voles (Myodes [=Clethrionomys] glareolus) showing predatory behavior was five times higher in selected lines than in controls. We used RNA-Seq to analyze the hippocampus and liver transcriptomes of voles from the selected and control lines and found that the selection resulted in repeatable changes in allele frequencies and gene expression. Genes with the largest differences between predatory and control lines – candidates, which may underlie phenotypic changes – are associated with hunger, aggression, biological rhythms and functioning of the nervous system. Evolution of predatory behavior could be meaningfully compared at the molecular level with evolution of high aerobic capacity, because the selection experiments and transcriptome analyses were performed in the same methodological framework. The number of genes differentially expressed compared to control was much smaller in predatory lines. On the other hand, allele frequencies changed repeatably in predatory but not in aerobic lines. These findings suggest that genetic architectures of the traits differ: more variants of smaller effects appear to underlie variation in aerobic performance, whereas fewer variants of larger effects underlie variation in predatory behavior. Our results support the view that differences in genetic architectures between quantitative traits are sufficient to produce different patterns of response to selection at the molecular level.

Data type: transcriptome

Sample scope: Multiisolate

Relevance: Evolution

Last updated: 2015-09-21