Social interactions among males trigger genetic changes in female cichlid fish

摘要

Most females choose mates based on traits that they perceive as beneficial to the survival of their offspring. Those traits can induce changes in female physiology; for example, hearing a preferred mate's song increases the expression of genes that mediate hearing in the female zebra finch brain. Julie Desjardins et al. (pp. 21176-21180) explore the lesser-known question of how brain activity changes in females who observe social interactions between males. The authors measured changes in gene expression as a proxy for neural activation in brain regions implicated in the social behavior of sexually active female African cichlid fish as they witnessed social interplay between males, which were matched in size and social dominance.