Neuronal function and dopamine signaling evolve at high temperature in Drosophila

Neuronal activity is temperature sensitive and affects behavioral traits important for individual fitness, such as locomotion and courtship. Yet, we do not know enough about the evolutionary response of neuronal phenotypes in new temperature environments. Here, we use long-term experimental evolution of Drosophila simulans populations exposed to novel temperature regimes. Here, we demonstrate a direct relationship between thermal selective pressure and the evolution of neuronally expressed molecular and behavioral phenotypes. Several essential neuronal genes evolve lower expression at high temperatures and higher expression at low temperatures, with dopaminergic neurons standing out by displaying the most consistent expression change across independent replicates. We functionally validate the link between evolved gene expression and behavioral changes by pharmacological intervention in the experimentally evolved D. simulans populations as well as by genetically triggered expression chan..., , , # Neuronal function and dopamine signaling evolve at high temperature in Drosophila

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.6m905qg62](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.6m905qg62)

This dataset contains RNA-seq read count and differential expression data, Drosophila behaviour data (spontaneous activity and startle-induced negative geotaxis after cocaine and 3IY treatment), powdered D. melanogaster and melanin FTIR-spectra and associated custom scripts and support files used to produce final results of this study.

## Description of the data and file structure

**RNA-seq**
-> RNAseq_counts.txt contains a tab delimited text file including raw RNA-seq read counts for all samples (columns) and genes (rows)
-> RNA-seq_countLabels.xls is an excel file containing an explanation of labels (column names) of the read count table and the mapping of label abbreviations to the original replicate name designation
-> temperaturefx.txt is a tab delimited text file containing log2 fold-change (logFC), log2...