Foraging-induced craniofacial plasticity is associated with an early, robust, and dynamic transcriptional response

Phenotypic plasticity is the ability of a single genotype to vary its phenotype in response to the environment. Plasticity of the skeletal system in response to mechanical input is widely studied, but the timing of its transcriptional regulation is not well-understood. Here we used the cichlid feeding apparatus to examine the transcriptional dynamics of skeletal plasticity over time. Using three closely related species that vary in their ability to remodel bone and a panel of 11 genes, including well studied skeletal differentiation markers and newly characterized environmentally sensitive genes, we examined plasticity at 1, 2, 4 and 8 weeks following the onset of alternate foraging challenges. We found that the plastic species exhibited environment-specific bursts in gene expression at 1 week, followed by a sharp decline in levels, while the species with more limited plasticity exhibited consistently low levels of gene expression. This trend held across nearly all genes, suggesting tha..., , , # Foraging-induced craniofacial plasticity is associated with an early, robust, and dynamic transcriptional response

Below, please find a description of the folders/files used for this project.

There are two main types of files/analyses used in this project: gene expression analysis via qPCR, and shape analysis.

File: Linkages_residuals_timeseries_compiled.csv
This csv contains the species (column 1), treatment (column 2), species by treatment (column 3), duration of treatment by week (column 4), species by treatment by week (column 5), and ID number (column 6) for each individual. In addition, linear measures of length were generated in ImageJ of the head (column 7, HL), fixed linkage (column 8, FL), input linkage (column 9, IL), coupler linkage (column 10, CL), and output linkage (column 11, OL). Residual values were calculated for each linkage length except the fixed link by head length (columns 12-14), but were not used in the dataset. The rest of the file contains statistical an...