Dietary tuning of poison frog tadpole behavior and development

毒蛙是有毒的，因为它们能够从食物中摄取生物碱并进行生物积累，这种毒性与它们明显的有色有关，即所谓的厌食症。在一种名为Ranitomeya模仿者的树突蛙类毒蛙中，蝌蚪由它们的母亲喂养，母亲定期存放含有生物碱的未受精卵供它们食用。动物的行为受到中枢神经系统的协调，并受到早期生活饮食的影响。为了研究摄食频率和生物碱消耗如何影响毒蛙的发育和行为，我提出了一个不同实验的项目：i)进行行为测试和3D免疫组织化学(IDISCO)相结合，以确定在对照处理、禁食处理(喂食相同数量和频率但不那么频繁)和生物碱处理(投喂相同数量和频率但添加生物碱反式十氢喹啉)下，蝌蚪乞讨和攻击行为的神经回路的差异；ii)评估这些处理如何影响蝌蚪的代谢率和发育，以及它们是否对幼体代谢率和行为有影响；Iii)测试青少年这些行为的强度是否与下丘脑中相关神经肽和受体的表达有关。这项工作将为研究毒蛙父母照顾的进化奠定基础，并将率先建立神经和分子基础来研究无融合和无精子行为的进化。

Poison frogs are toxic due to alkaloids they are able to take up from the diet and bioaccumulate, and this toxicity correlates to their conspicuous coloration, known as aposematism. In a dendrobatid poison frog, Ranitomeya imitator, tadpoles are fed by their mothers, who periodically deposit alkaloid-containing unfertilized eggs for their consumption. Animal behaviors are coordinated by the central nervous system and influenced by early life diet. With the aim to investigate how feeding frequency and alkaloid consumption influence the development and behavior of poison frogs, I propose a project with different experiments: i) to conduct behavioral assays coupled to 3D immunohistochemistry (iDISCO) to identify differences in the neural circuitry for begging and aggressive behaviors in tadpoles under a control treatment, a fasting treatment (fed the same quantity but less frequently) and an alkaloid treatment (fed the same quantity and frequency but adding the alkaloid trans-Decahydroquinoline); ii) to evaluate how these treatments affect tadpoles’ metabolic rate and development, and if they have a carry-over effect on the juvenile metabolic rate and behavior; iii) to test if the intensity of these behaviors in juveniles is correlated to the expression of pertinent neuropeptides and receptors in the hypothalamus. This work will set a baseline to study the evolution of parental care in poison frogs and will pioneer in setting a neural and molecular basis to investigate the evolution of aposematism and aposematic behavior.