Life Sciences Commons^™

Contextual Modulation Of Social And Endocrine Correlates Of Fitness: Insights From The Life History Of A Sex Changing Fish, Devaleena S. Pradhan

Neuroscience Institute Faculty Publications

Steroid hormones are critical regulators of reproductive life history, and the steroid sensitive traits (morphology, behavior, physiology) associated with particular life history stages can have substantial fitness consequences for an organism. Hormones, behavior and fitness are reciprocally associated and can be used in an integrative fashion to understand how the environment impacts organismal function. To address the fitness component, we highlight the importance of using reliable proxies of reproductive success when studying proximate regulation of reproductive phenotypes. To understand the mechanisms by which the endocrine system regulates phenotype, we discuss the use of particular endocrine proxies and the need for …