Data from: Responses to artificial selection for locomotor activity: A focus on death feigning in red flour beetle

Whole-organism performance, including locomotor activity, is an important
fitness trait in many animals. Locomotor activity is often classified into
sprint speed and locomotor endurance and differences in sprint speed and
locomotor endurance affect on other traits such as life-history traits.
Previous studies found that locomotor endurance, sprint speed, and brain
dopamine (DA) levels are correlated with artificial selection for
death-feigning (an anti-predator behavior that we refer to as
"death-feigning syndrome") in some insect species. Thus, if the
syndrome has a genetic basis, death feigning, sprint speed, and brain DA
levels may be affected by artificial selection for locomotor endurance. We
artificially selected for locomotor endurance over 10 generations in the
red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum, and established higher (H) and lower
activity (L) strains, then compared their death-feigning behavior, sprint
speed, and brain DA levels. H-strain beetles exhibited significantly
shorter duration of death-feigning, and significantly higher sprint speed,
suggesting variation in death-feigning syndrome. Surprisingly, although
brain DA expression affects various animal behaviors, we found no
significant differences in the brain DA expressions of H- and L-strain
beetles. Thus, our results imply genetic correlations between locomotor
endurance, sprint speed, and death feigning, but not with brain DA
expression, suggesting that differences in the biogenic amine results of
our previous studies may reflect differences in behavioral expression
mechanisms.