Data for: Social context prevents heat hormetic effects against mutagens during fish development

Data for: Social context prevents heat hormetic effect against mutagens during fish development

Abstract: Global changes impose increasingly stressful environments with multiple stressors such as heat events and mutagens co-occurring. Stress levels may be increased via stress-induced “social metabolites” from congeners. Consequently, species experiencing multiple stressors within social contexts may display more adverse outcomes than anticipated. This makes it paramount to understand how social and heat stress history may amplify the negative consequences of global change-related stressors in aquatic animals when they face subsequent stressors. For this purpose, we exposed zebrafish embryos to one of three stress history treatments consisting of direct heat stress, its social context via chemical cues, and their combination, before undergoing a UVB/UVA damage/repair assay. We measured phenotypic and transcriptomic responses to these treatments, and estimated mutational damage through RNA integrity values. Compared to UV-treated controls, embryos exposed to social metabolites preceding the UV assay showed altered keratin and cell structuring-related pathways, were growing longer with over-developed pericardia and were hypoactive. Relative to UV-treated controls, direct heat stress preceding UV exposure had a hormetic effect likely involving stimulation of the cellular stress response and a facilitated DNA repair, rescuing and/or protecting embryos from UV damage, in turn improving their fitness. However, heat stress combined with social metabolites likely overwhelmed embryos in the UV assay, which annihilated the hormetic effect, damaged RNA, and lowered apparent fitness estimates. Although these findings were obtained in the laboratory, they provide a solid framework for understanding how heat and social stress history affect fitness outcomes in natural environments. This underscores the need for more research on how species adapt to intensifying stressors amidst global change in social contexts.

This archive contains the data of RNA-sequencing and phenotypic (morphology and behaviour) of zebrafish embryos exposed to stress history (heat stress and its social context) prior to being exposed to ultraviolets (UV).