TY - JOUR
T1 - Molecular and neuroendocrine approaches to understanding trade-offs
T2 - Food, sex, aggression, stress, and longevity-An introduction to the symposium
AU - Schneider, Jill E.
AU - Deviche, Pierre
N1 - Funding Information:
IOS-1257876 from the National Science Foundation
Funding Information:
This symposium was generously funded by the Office of the Provost and the Department of Biological Sciences of Lehigh University and by the following divisions of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology: DAB, DCE & DNB. This article was funded by IOS-1257876 from the National Science Foundation awarded to J. E. Schneider.
Funding Information:
The research presented in this symposium is not only exciting, but also relevant to clinical/translational endocrinology. Most of the work presented at this symposium is funded by or potentially funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the United States Department of Agriculture, or other agencies that support research on climate change, conservation, and health and disease in people and domestic animals. For example, understanding the pleiotropic mechanisms that underlie the link between energy homeostasis, reproduction, aggression, stress, immunity, and longevity is relevant to understanding obesity, eating disorders, child abuse, infertility, inflammation, depression, and cancer in our own species (Korte et al. 2005). More specifically, Willis is making progress in understanding the role of energy constraints in trade-offs between immune function and homeothermy with regard to the epidemic of white nose syndrome in bats M. lucifugus (Willis 2017). Similarly, understanding the constraints and tradeoffs associated with the evolution of sickness behaviors is relevant to drug development and therapeutic treatments for cancer, autoimmunue disease, and infections (Sylvia and Demas 2017). Clinical relevance and ecological/evolutionary importance are not mutually exclusive. Changes in climate and pollution directly impact health and disease as well as evolution and epigenetic change (Denver et al. 2009). Many of the contributors to this symposium are excellent examples of scientists who work without boundaries to link adaptive/maladaptive mechanisms to health and disease. They help us glimpse new ways to enrich and enliven our research programs by viewing the data within the context of integrative and comparative neuroendocrinology, ecology, and evolutionary biology.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author 2017.
PY - 2017/12/1
Y1 - 2017/12/1
N2 - Synopsis Life history strategies are composed of multiple fitness components, each of which incurs costs and benefits. Consequently, organisms cannot maximize all fitness components simultaneously. This situation results in a dynamic array of trade-offs in which some fitness traits prevail at the expense of others, often depending on context. The identification of specific constraints and trade-offs has helped elucidate physiological mechanisms that underlie variation in behavioral and physiological life history strategies. There is general recognition that trade-offs are made at the individual and population level, but much remains to be learned concerning the molecular neuroendocrine mechanisms that underlie trade-offs. For example, we still do not know whether the mechanisms that underlie trade-offs at the individual level relate to trade-offs at the population level. To advance our understanding of trade-offs, we organized a group of speakers who study neuroendocrine mechanisms at the interface of traits that are not maximized simultaneously. Speakers were invited to represent research from a wide range of taxa including invertebrates (e.g., worms and insects), fish, nonavian reptiles, birds, and mammals. Three general themes emerged. First, the study of trade-offs requires that we investigate traditional endocrine mechanisms that include hormones, neuropeptides, and their receptors, and in addition, other chemical messengers not traditionally included in endocrinology. The latter group includes growth factors, metabolic intermediates, and molecules of the immune system. Second, the nomenclature and theory of neuroscience that has dominated the study of behavior is being re-evaluated in the face of evidence for the peripheral actions of so-called neuropeptides and neurotransmitters and the behavioral repercussions of these actions. Finally, environmental and ecological contexts continue to be critical in unmasking molecular mechanisms that are hidden when study animals are housed in enclosed spaces, with unlimited food, without competitors or conspecifics, and in constant ambient conditions.
AB - Synopsis Life history strategies are composed of multiple fitness components, each of which incurs costs and benefits. Consequently, organisms cannot maximize all fitness components simultaneously. This situation results in a dynamic array of trade-offs in which some fitness traits prevail at the expense of others, often depending on context. The identification of specific constraints and trade-offs has helped elucidate physiological mechanisms that underlie variation in behavioral and physiological life history strategies. There is general recognition that trade-offs are made at the individual and population level, but much remains to be learned concerning the molecular neuroendocrine mechanisms that underlie trade-offs. For example, we still do not know whether the mechanisms that underlie trade-offs at the individual level relate to trade-offs at the population level. To advance our understanding of trade-offs, we organized a group of speakers who study neuroendocrine mechanisms at the interface of traits that are not maximized simultaneously. Speakers were invited to represent research from a wide range of taxa including invertebrates (e.g., worms and insects), fish, nonavian reptiles, birds, and mammals. Three general themes emerged. First, the study of trade-offs requires that we investigate traditional endocrine mechanisms that include hormones, neuropeptides, and their receptors, and in addition, other chemical messengers not traditionally included in endocrinology. The latter group includes growth factors, metabolic intermediates, and molecules of the immune system. Second, the nomenclature and theory of neuroscience that has dominated the study of behavior is being re-evaluated in the face of evidence for the peripheral actions of so-called neuropeptides and neurotransmitters and the behavioral repercussions of these actions. Finally, environmental and ecological contexts continue to be critical in unmasking molecular mechanisms that are hidden when study animals are housed in enclosed spaces, with unlimited food, without competitors or conspecifics, and in constant ambient conditions.
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U2 - 10.1093/icb/icx113
DO - 10.1093/icb/icx113
M3 - Article
C2 - 28992053
AN - SCOPUS:85033227733
SN - 1540-7063
VL - 57
SP - 1151
EP - 1160
JO - Integrative and comparative biology
JF - Integrative and comparative biology
IS - 6
ER -