Subterranean Fishes of the World

3929

2018

Developmental Biology

319-327

441

Responding appropriately to stress is essential for survival, yet in pathological states, these responses can develop into debilitating conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder and generalized anxiety. While genetic models have provided insight into the neurochemical and neuroanatomical pathways that underlie stress, little is known about how evolutionary processes and naturally occurring variation contribute to the diverse responses to stressful stimuli observed in the animal kingdom. The Mexican cavefish is a powerful system to address how altered genetic and neuronal systems can give rise to aberrant behaviors. When introduced into a novel tank, surface fish display a stereotypic stress response, characterized by reduced exploratory behavior and increased immobility, akin to freezing. The stress response in cave and surface forms is potently reduced by pharmacological treatment of the anxiolytic drug, buspirone, fortifying the notion that behavior in the assay represents a conserved stress state. We find that cave populations display reduced behavioral measures of stress compared to surface conspecifics, including increased time in the top half of the tank and fewer periods of immobility. Further, reduced stress responses are observed in multiple independently derived cavefish populations, suggesting convergence on loss of behavioral stress response in the novel tank assay. These findings provide evidence of a naturally occurring species with two drastically different forms in which a shift in predator-rich ecology to one with few predators corresponds to a reduction in stress behavior. Keywords: Astyanax; anxiety; buspirone; convergent evolution; novel tank; bottom dwelling

1