title: Genetic Basis Underlying Behavioral Correlation Between Fugu Takifugu rubripes and a Closely Related Species, Takifugu niphobles.
abstract: Correlated suits of behaviors (behavioral syndrome) are commonly observed in both inter- and intraspecific studies. In order to understand the genetic basis of such a correlation between species, we compared ten behaviors classified into five categories (acclimation, feeding, normal swimming, reaction to a novel object and activity in a novel environment) between two pufferfish species, Takifugu rubripes and T. niphobles. The two species showed consistent differences in nine behaviors with a significant correlation among behaviors. Quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis using second generation hybrids revealed that different sets of small effect QTL are associated with the observed interspecific behavioral disparity. This indicates that correlations in temperament traits between them are governed by many genes with small effects, and each behavior has been selected to form particular combination patterns. One of the QTL showing small pleiotropic effect includes the Drd4 gene known for its association with behavioral traits in some animal taxa including mammals.
authors.affiliation: Fisheries Laboratory, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Tokyo, 2971-4, Bentenjima, Maisaka, Shizuoka, Hamamatsu, 431-0214, Japan, ahosoya@mail.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Sho
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hosoya
authors.forename: Hiroaki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Suetake
authors.forename: Yuzuru
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Suzuki
authors.forename: Kiyoshi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kikuchi
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D005838:Genotype; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D040641:Quantitative Trait Loci / Q000235:genetics; D013045:Species Specificity; D023741:Takifugu / Q000235:genetics*