behavior
- Utilizing the blind cavefish Astyanax mexicanus to understand the genetic basis of behavioral evolution
Summary: Astyanax mexicanus is an excellent model system for examining the genetic basis of complex traits. This Review discusses how gene editing tools can be used to further understand how behaviors evolve.
- How to turn an organism into a model organism in 10 ‘easy’ steps
Summary: Drawing on our own experience over the past decade with the Aedes aegypti mosquito, we present a series of steps that scientists can take to make non-model species tractable for mechanistic genetic investigation.
- A low-cost, open-source inertial movement GPS logger for eco-physiology applications
Summary: Description of the Tapered Wings Logger (TWLogger), a new, low-cost, open-source, archival bio-logger that records high-resolution (e.g. 50 Hz) tri-axial accelerometry and magnetometry, temperature and GPS.
- Color discrimination thresholds in a cichlid fish: Metriaclima benetos
Summary: Color discrimination thresholds of cichlids can be obtained through visually mediated tasks, enabling investigation of the role of vision in cichlid ecology, sexual selection and speciation.
- Feedback to the future: motor neuron contributions to central pattern generator function
Summary: Motor neurons relay signals from the brain and spinal cord to muscles that perform behaviors. However, studies across phyla indicate that motor neurons also contribute to the function of pattern-generating circuits.
- Acetoin is a key odor for resource location in the giant robber crab Birgus latro
Summary: Birgus latro is the biggest land-living crab – a solitary animal that sometimes accumulates at food sources. A single food odor, acetoin, is sufficient to govern this behavior.
- Anthropogenic noise and the bioacoustics of terrestrial invertebrates
Summary: We review the current literature on invertebrate bioacoustics and characteristics of anthropogenic noise to suggest a framework for understanding the potential impact of anthropogenic noise on terrestrial invertebrates.
- Food-derived volatiles enhance consumption in Drosophila melanogaster
Summary: Fruit flies integrate diverse olfactory and gustatory cues to guide feeding decisions, including situations in which animals are confronted with stimuli of opposite valence.
- Gut microbiota affects development and olfactory behavior in Drosophila melanogaster
Summary: Fruit flies raised on food enriched with one of their gut microbes change their preference for these microbes and their developmental rate depending on their specific microbe pre-exposure.
- Cyclic nature of the REM sleep-like state in the cuttlefish Sepia officinalis
Summary: Evidence suggests that cephalopods possess a sleep-like state that resembles behaviorally the vertebrate rapid eye movement sleep (REMS)-like state.