REU: Responses to Artificial Selection for Voluntary Activity in House Mice

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9728434 T. Garland Jr. Responses to artificial selection for voluntary activity in house mice Non-Technical Summary During the course of evolution, changes in behavior, morphology, and physiology occur in some correlated fashion. Natural selection that leads to changes in one trait also produces changes in other traits. Artificial selection, where individuals possessing extreme values for some trait are mated with one another over many generations, has been used to establish lines of house mice that have a 120% greater level of voluntary activity. Using four such lines, along with control lines that were not subjected to selection, this research will explore the morphological and physiological changes that are correlated with this change in behavior. It will explore traits such as oxygen consumption, heart mass and blood hemoglobin levels to determine differences in locomotor performance capabilities. In addition, function of the endocrine system, limb bone proportions, muscle fiber types and the activities of key enzymes in both aerobic and anaerobic metabolism will be examined. This research will bring to bear a wide array of sophisticated, modern methodology from the fields of functional morphology, respiratory physiology, endocrinology and genetics to these truly integrative studies of the evolution of behavior. The selected lines produced by this research will be made available to other researchers and will provide an important model system for studying effects of voluntary activity in behavior on physical fitness, health, lifespan and other aspects of life history in mammals. This project constitutes a pioneering study upon which this potential for future research rests.