Meeting Abstract

P1-43    Identifying the neural substrates driving behavioral change in morphologically plastic cichlid Astatotilapia burtoni Hackett, MB*; Alvarado, S; Queens College, CUNY, Flushing, NY; Queens College, CUNY, Flushing, NY matthew.hackett91@qmail.cuny.edu

Phenotypic plasticity can allow an animal to rapidly adapt to a changing environment. For example morphological plasticity can allow certain animals to change color to avoid predators, catch prey, and/or communicate social information. While different color morphs of a given species sometimes show variation in their behavior, little is known about their underlying neural processes. Here, we used the color morphs of an African cichlid, Astatotilapia burtoni, to study this phenomenon. To investigate this process, males were housed on differently colored substrates, inducing a color change (N=18). Following this color change, males were then provided an opportunity to interact with females in an arena, induced to the opposite color, and then sacrificed for neural activity labeling using phospho-S6. PS6-labelling was specifically studied within the Social Decision Making Network (SDMN) conserved in vertebrates to reveal differences between blue and yellow morphs. Since the same individual is capable of becoming either color we anticipate that behavioral and morphological plasticity allow males of this cichlid to adapt to seasonal variation within their natural habitat.