Data from: Dimensionality of locomotor behaviors in developing C. elegans

Adult animals display robust locomotion, yet the timeline and mechanisms
of how juvenile animals acquire coordinated movements and how these
movements evolve during development are not well understood. Recent
advances in quantitative behavioral analyses have paved the way for
investigating complex natural behaviors like locomotion. In this study, we
tracked the swimming and crawling behaviors of the nematode Caenorhabditis
elegans from postembryonic development through to adulthood. Our principal
component analyses revealed that adult C. elegans swimming is low
dimensional, suggesting that a small number of distinct postures, or
eigenworms, account for most of the variance in the body shapes that
constitute swimming behavior. Additionally, we found that crawling
behavior in adult C. elegans is similarly low dimensional, corroborating
previous studies. Further, our analysis revealed that swimming and
crawling are distinguishable within the eigenworm space. Remarkably, young
L1 larvae are capable of producing the postural shapes for swimming and
crawling seen in adults, despite frequent instances of uncoordinated body
movements. In contrast, late L1 larvae exhibit robust coordination of
locomotion, while many neurons crucial for adult locomotion are still
under development. In conclusion, this study establishes a comprehensive
quantitative behavioral framework for understanding the neural basis of
locomotor development, including distinct gaits such as swimming and
crawling in C. elegans.