Biology subjects

Bogdanowicz, S. M.

Publications and source records attributed to Bogdanowicz, S. M..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Plasticity Associated with Adoption of Social Roles in Clown Anemonefish

Central questions of animal behavior are how do individual phenotypes shape and how are individual phenotypes shaped by dominance hierarchies. Using clownfish (Amphiprion percula) as a model system, we investigated how individuals strategically modify their phenotype during hierarchy formation. We tested the overarching hypothesis that interactions among size- and age-matched rivals will lead to the emergence of social roles (dominant, subordinate, solitary), accompanied by divergence in four aspects of individual phenotypes: growth, feeding behavior, agonistic behaviors (aggression, submission), and gene expression. To test this, we created 30 replicates of juvenile clownfish, each comprising a size-matched pair housed together, and a solitary size-matched individual housed separately. Our results show that an individuals social context shapes its growth trajectory through coordinated changes in feeding behavior, agonistic behaviors, and gene expression. Individuals emerging as dominant within pairs grew twice as much compared to those emerging as subordinates, while subordinate and solitary individuals showed comparable growth. Initially, paired individuals consumed more food per capita than solitary individuals, but this difference declined as size hierarchies became established. Agonistic behaviors also decreased over time among paired individuals as size differences emerged. Transcriptomic analyses revealed upregulation of conserved vertebrate growth pathways and ossification related genes, and downregulation of satiety-associated genes, in dominant individuals compared to subordinates and solitaries. Here we identify associations between changes in gene expression, growth, and feeding behavior regulation that reinforce social role differentiation during dominance hierarchy formation in clownfish. Our findings lay the foundation for a broader framework to explore the mechanisms underpinning strategic growth in social vertebrates.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2025

Environmental DNA monitoring of waterfowl reveals community changes during migration

Large-scale visual surveys are an integral part of waterfowl conservation and management programs. In this paper we explore the possibility of using environmental DNA-based surveys as a cost-efficient, complementary tool to estimate populations of North American waterfowl species. To achieve this, we first evaluated the performance of all currently available avian metabarcoding primers and compared them to newly designed primers targeting the mitochondrial ND2 gene within the Anatidae tribes of North America. All the existing avian assays showed strong cross-priming amplification with other vertebrates. In contrast, in-silico analyses of our waterfowl targeted assays showed a high degree (>90%) of avian specificity, encompassing all the 132 Anatidae species sequenced thus far. We used this targeted metabarcoding approach to track the temporal variation in the relative abundance of waterfowl species during the fall migration at Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge, New York, a major resting area for waterfowl on their journey to and from North American nesting areas. We compared eDNA results with visual surveys conducted by us and from those reported on eBird. Our results showed that eDNA detected all waterfowl species (n= 25) during fall migration. Positive correlations existed between standardized eDNA read counts and the relative abundance of waterfowl species as reported in eBird on the day of sampling and up to five days prior. However, this approach did not provide a good metric for absolute abundance of waterfowl species: only 8 out of 25 waterfowl species showed significant correlations between the number of eDNA reads and the total abundance of birds. Overall, while eDNA-targeted metabarcoding has not yet been applied to study bird communities extensively, our results demonstrate that this technique can be used as an effective complementary tool for assessing species composition of waterfowl communities and estimating relative abundance of species within those communities.

genetics↗

bioRxiv2021

Consequences of coupled barriers to gene flow for the build-up of genomic differentiation

Theory predicts that when different barriers to gene flow become coincident, their joint effects enhance reproductive isolation and genomic divergence beyond their individual effects, but empirical tests of this coupling hypothesis are rare. Here, we analyze patterns of gene exchange among populations of European corn borer moths that vary in the number of acting barriers, allowing for comparisons of genomic variation when barrier traits or loci are in coincident or independent states. We find that divergence is mainly restricted to barrier loci when populations differ by a single barrier, whereas the coincidence of temporal and behavioral barriers is associated with divergence of two chromosomes harboring barrier loci. Furthermore, differentiation at temporal barrier loci increases in the presence of behavioral divergence and differentiation at behavioral barrier loci increases in the presence of temporal divergence. Our results demonstrate how the joint action of coincident barrier effects leads to levels of genomic differentiation that far exceed those of single barriers acting alone, consistent with theory arguing that coupling allows indirect selection to combine with direct selection and thereby lead to a stronger overall barrier to gene flow. Thus, the state of barriers - independent or coupled - strongly influences the accumulation of genomic differentiation.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2019

Genomic basis of circannual rhythm in the European corn borer moth

Genetic variation in life-history timing allows populations to synchronize with seasonal cycles but little is known about the molecular mechanisms that produce differences in circannual rhythm in nature. Changes in diapause timing in the European corn borer moth (Ostrinia nubilalis) have facilitated rapid response to shifts in winter length encountered during range expansion and from climate change, with some populations emerging from diapause earlier to produce an additional generation per year. We identify genomic variation associated with changes in the time spent in winter diapause and show evidence that the circadian clock genes period (per) and pigment dispersing factor receptor (Pdfr) interact to underlie this adaptive polymorphism in circannual rhythm. Per and Pdfr are located within two epistatic QTL, strongly differ in allele frequency among individuals that pupate earlier or later, have the highest linkage disequilibrium among gene pairs in the QTL regions despite separation by > 4 megabases, and possess amino-acid changes likely to affect function. One per mutation in linkage disequilibrium with Pdfr creates a novel putative clock-cycle binding site found exclusively in populations that pupate later. We find associated changes in free-running daily circadian rhythm, with longer daily rhythms in individuals that end diapause early. These results support a modular connection between circadian and circannual timers and provide testable hypotheses about the physiological role of the circadian clock in seasonal synchrony. Winter length is expected to continually shorten from climate warming and we predict these gene candidates will be targets of selection for future adaptation and population persistence.

evolutionary biology↗