Personality and plasticity in two isogenic lineages of the mangrove rivulus, Kryptolebias marmoratus

Abstract

Animals are capable of displaying different reactions over time and /or contexts, in other words, personality , which is now the subject of a large number of scientific studies. An animal's personality is evaluated by means of a number of behavioral traits, such as boldness, exploration or aggressi on While the variation of these traits across contexts is regularly studied, their variation over time , is less documented. For this study, boldness was selected to evaluate the personality and plasticity of the mangrove rivulus Kryptolebias marmoratus The interest of u sing this fish for this type of studies, is that it produces isog e nic lineages. Being one of the only two vertebrate species that self reproduce, the parents are able to produce offspring identical to themselves. This allows researchers to disregard genes as the source of behavioral variation. Using two isogenic lineage s (EPP and of the mangrove rivulus, the aim of this study is to verify if these fish present a personality and if they are changing behavior over time thus, are being plastic. But also, to compare those two lineages who differ only by their degree of genetic variati on to verify if they present differences in personality and plasticity.

Date of Award	2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Namur Université Catholique de Louvain
Supervisor	Frederic Silvestre (Supervisor)