RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Genetic integration of behavioural and endocrine components of the stress response
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 770586
DO 10.1101/770586
A1 T.M. Houslay
A1 R.L. Earley
A1 S.J. White
A1 W. Lammers
A1 A.J. Grimmer
A1 L.M. Travers
A1 E.L. Johnson
A1 A.J. Young
A1 A.J. Wilson
YR 2022
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/01/10/770586.abstract
AB The vertebrate stress response comprises a suite of behavioural and physiological traits that must be functionally integrated to ensure organisms cope adaptively with acute stressors. Natural selection should favour functional integration, leading to a prediction of genetic integration of these traits. Despite the implications of such genetic integration for our understanding of human and animal health, as well as evolutionary responses to natural and anthropogenic stressors, formal quantitative genetic tests of this prediction are lacking. Here we demonstrate that acute stress response components in Trinidadian guppies are both heritable and integrated on the major axis of genetic covariation. This integration could either facilitate or constrain evolutionary responses to selection, depending upon the alignment of selection with this axis. Such integration also suggests artificial selection on the genetically correlated behavioural responses to stress could offer a viable non-invasive route to the improvement of health and welfare in captive animal populations.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.