Adaptive gene regulation in wild mammals exposed to high predator abundance
Abstract
Psychological stress induced by exposure to predators has complex effects on the behaviour and physiology of prey species. This includes potential influences on gene expression mediated via stress-responsive physiological pathways such as the sympathetic nervous system and hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis. Laboratory studies have documented diverse transcriptional effects of predator-induced fear, but genomic responses to predator exposure in the wild remain poorly understood. Here, we used RNA-sequencing to investigate the leukocyte transcriptome response to chronic predator pressure in a well-studied population of wild yellow-bellied marmots, Marmota flaviventer. We assessed the genomic response to this stressor in three ways by (1) identifying differentially expressed individual genes across the genome, (2) assessing whether differentially expressed genes were statistically over-represented by functional categories and (3) testing for transcription factor activity that may mediate observed gene expression differences. We found 349 individual genes regulated in association with chronic predator presence, including transcripts known to regulate heat shock proteins, metabolism and DNA damage repair. Gene ontology analysis revealed that the majority of these differentially expressed genes were involved with the cellular response to stress, cellular metabolism and protein transport. Transcription factor analysis implicated glucocorticoid signalling in mediating these effects. Our work confirms that the physiological response to predator-induced stress is complex, initiating transcriptional activity in multiple processes and pathways. In addition to the canonical expectations that individuals exposed to predators mobilize HPA signalling and homeostasis pathways, we also detected activity in genes typically associated with human anxiety and cerebral function. This is the first study to demonstrate that leukocyte transcriptomes taken from animals living in a natural environment can reflect the complex ecology of fear.
Local Knowledge Graph (19 entities)
Related Works
Items connected by shared entities, co-authorship, citations, or semantic similarity.
Gene expression shifts in yellow-bellied marmots prior to natal dispersal
A test of the multipredator hypothesis: yellow-bellied marmots respond fearfully to the sight of novel and extinct predators
Older mothers follow conservative strategies under predator pressure: The adaptive role of maternal glucocorticoids in yellow-bellied marmots
Marmot capture history data and growing season length data
Genetic basis of between-individual and within-individual variance of docility
Demographic consequences of changes in environmental periodicity
Ecosystem Disturbance and Wildlife Conservation in Western Grasslands
An Ecological Basis for Beaver Management in the Rocky Mountain Region
Wildlife Impacts
Cited By (6 times, 1 in Knowledge Hub)
References (92)
11 in Knowledge Hub, 81 external