Postdoctoral Fellowship: PRFB: Multi-level integration of behavior and brain transcriptomic variation in a polyphenic insect with biparental care.

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2025. The fellowship supports research and training of the fellow that will contribute to biology in innovative ways. Behavior is one of the most flexible traits that an animal (or human) can use to help it survive and thrive. But this flexibility can also make behavior challenging to study, especially across levels of biological organization. This project investigates both behavior and the genes that are actively being used in the brain to generate that behavior in three ways. First, how do behavior and brain gene expression change across the lifetime of an animal? Second, how do the brain and the body work together to produce a behavior? And third, how do behavior and brain gene expression change based on what the animal functionally needs to accomplish? Together, what we learn from these aims will enhance our understanding of how brains, bodies, and behaviors function together. To achieve the above aims, this project will use diverse molecular techniques and a study organism that undergoes major changes in development, develops alternative morphologies and behaviors based on the environment, and displays biparental care: the bull-headed dung beetle, Onthophagus taurus. In this species, high-nutrition males develop into large, horned “fighters” whereas low-nutrition males develop into small, hornless “sneakers.” In contrast, females develop the same range of body sizes but never grow horns and are behaviorally monomorphic. First, this project will use RNAseq on the brains of fighter males, sneaker males, and large and small females at four different life stages to assess brain gene expression as individuals mature along different trajectories. Second, this project will use RNAinterference to generate morphological mismatches (e.g. females with horns) to assess if and how behavioral repertoires and morphology are linked via brain gene expression. Finally, this project will use RNAseq to contrast brain gene expression in both males and females engaging in the same ecologically critical behaviors—aggression and parental care—to assess the degree to which shared behaviors rely on shared brain gene expression. This project will train the fellow in advanced molecular biology techniques. This project will additionally produce educational resources about animal behavior for middle- and high-school educators and mentor students through summer programs developed to increase STEM participation. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.