Research article - Peer-reviewed, 2021
Fast life-histories are associated with larger brain size in killifishes
Sowersby, Will; Eckerstrom-Liedholm, Simon; Kotrschal, Alexander; Naslund, Joacim; Rowinski, Piotr; Gonzalez-Voyer, Alejandro; Rogell, BjornAbstract
The high energetic demands associated with the vertebrate brain are proposed to result in a trade-off between the pace of life-history and relative brain size. However, because both life-history and brain size also have a strong relationship with body size, any associations between the pace of life-history and relative brain size may be confounded by coevolution with body size. Studies on systems where contrasts in the pace of life-history occur without concordant contrasts in body size could therefore add to our understanding of the potential coevolution between relative brain size and life-history. Using one such system - 21 species of killifish - we employed a common garden design across two ontogenetic stages to investigate the association between relative brain size and the pace of life-history. Contrary to predictions, we found that relative brain size was larger in adult fast-living killifishes, compared to slow-living species. Although we found no differences in relative brain size between juvenile killifishes. Our results suggest that fast- and slow-living killifishes do not exhibit the predicted trade-off between brain size and life-history. Instead, fast and slow-living killifishes could differ in the ontogenetic timing of somatic versus neural growth or inhabit environments that differ considerably in cognitive demands.Keywords
life-history; brain size; killifish; coevolution; body size; trade-offPublished in
Evolution2021, volume: 75, number: 9, pages: 2286-2298
Publisher: WILEY
Authors' information
Sowersby, Will
Osaka City University
Eckerstrom-Liedholm, Simon
Stockholm University
Kotrschal, Alexander
Stockholm University
Stockholm University
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Aquatic Resources
Rowinski, Piotr
Stockholm University
Gonzalez-Voyer, Alejandro
Stockholm University
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Aquatic Resources
Stockholm University
UKÄ Subject classification
Ecology
Publication Identifiers
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/evo.14310
URI (permanent link to this page)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/113272