Rapid adaptation to food availability by a dopamine-mediated morphogenetic response

Diane K. Adams (), Mary A. Sewell, Robert C. Angerer and Lynne M. Angerer
Additional contact information
Diane K. Adams: National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, National Institutes of Health, 30 Convent Drive, Building 30 Room 523, Bethesda, Maryland 20892 USA.
Mary A. Sewell: School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland
Robert C. Angerer: National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, National Institutes of Health, 30 Convent Drive, Building 30 Room 523, Bethesda, Maryland 20892 USA.
Lynne M. Angerer: National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, National Institutes of Health, 30 Convent Drive, Building 30 Room 523, Bethesda, Maryland 20892 USA.

Nature Communications, 2011, vol. 2, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract Food can act as a powerful stimulus, eliciting metabolic, behavioural and developmental responses. These phenotypic changes can alter ecological and evolutionary processes; yet, the molecular mechanisms underlying many plastic phenotypic responses remain unknown. Here we show that dopamine signalling through a type-D2 receptor mediates developmental plasticity by regulating arm length in pre-feeding sea urchin larvae in response to food availability. Although prey-induced traits are often thought to improve food acquisition, the mechanism underlying this plastic response acts to reduce feeding structure size and subsequent feeding rate. Consequently, the developmental programme and/or maternal provisioning predetermine the maximum possible feeding rate, and food-induced dopamine signalling reduces food acquisition potential during periods of abundant resources to preserve maternal energetic reserves. Sea urchin larvae may have co-opted the widespread use of food-induced dopamine signalling from behavioural responses to instead alter their development.

Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms1603 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:2:y:2011:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms1603

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1603

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().