Subterranean life: Behavior, metabolic, and some other adaptations of Astyanax cavefish. | Semantic Scholar (2024)

A chromosome-level genome is presented for the proxy-ancestral surface fish, and CRISPR gene-editing is used to show the role of the rx3 gene in eye size, and the first genome-wide evaluation of deletion variability across cavefish populations is generated.

The results affirm that T. rosa exhibits life traits conducive to its population dynamics in cave conditions, characterized by slow growth, small size, and high lipid energy storage.

Increases in CTmax with chronic thermal acclimation to higher temperatures suggests that there is some degree of phenotypic plasticity in this species that nominally occupies thermally stable environments.

By examining aerobic and anaerobic potential in both morphs of the Mexican cavefish, it is sought to link environmental thermal flexibility to muscle metabolism and found that the surface morphotype had higher CS activity and lower lactate concentration, suggesting an overall more efficient usage of aerobic metabolism.

This work is one of the first studies to focus on the description of lncRNAs in A .

An emerging genetic model for behavioral neuroecology, Drosophila sechellia, is exploited to study the evolution and sensory basis of oviposition and discovers a key role for hexanoic acid and its cognate receptor, the Ionotropic receptor Ir75b, in odor-evoked Oviposition.

It is found that loss of olfactory input in D. sechellia, but not D. melanogaster, essentially abolishes egg-laying, suggesting that olfaction gates gustatory-driven noni preference, and a role for hexanoic acid and the cognate Ionotropic receptor 75b in odor-evoked oviposition is discovered.

The rise of this model system from its discovery by a Mexican surveyor in 1936 to a powerful system for cave biology and contemporary genetic research is documented, which has provided insight to the mechanisms of phenotypic regression, the genetic basis for constructive trait evolution, and the origin of behavioral novelties.

This chapter reviews hearing in cavefishes, offers suggestions for future avenues of research on cavefish hearing, and discusses the influence of Popper and Fay on the field of cavefish bioacoustics.

The idea that A. mexicanus, as a model, has reached a stage where an integrated approach or a multi-disciplinary method of analysis is a powerful tool that can be applied to understand general evolutionary processes is promoted.

This study clearly shows that morphological adaptations have evolved convergently in different, unrelated millipede orders and families, most likely as a direct adaptation to cave life.

A transcriptome analysis of cave and surface dwelling Astyanax morphs using Roche/454 pyrosequencing technology yielded an adult transcriptome represented by highly diverse Gene Ontology (GO) terms, which will enable powerful genetic and genomic analyses in the future that will better clarify the heritable genetic changes governing adaptation to the cave environment.

An introduction to the special volume on the biology of hypogean fishes A. Romero, K.M. Paulson, and G. Proudlove.

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