Postdoctoral Fellowship: PRFB: Neuroendocrinology of adult feminization in a sexually plastic fish

About This Grant

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2025. The fellowship supports research and training of the fellow that will contribute to biology in innovative ways. This project will use the highly versatile and social bluebanded goby, Lythrypnus dalli, to elucidate how dynamic social environments alter biology and behavior. The research aims to uncover the restructuring of the brain and gonads in response to external social pressures in these fish, as well as the role hormones have in mediating these changes. Identifying the biological mechanisms behind rapid shifts in a socially complex species is key to understanding how environments shape behavior, hormones, and neurobiology. Project activities will allow the Fellow to further develop as a scientist, mentor, and educator skilled at building learning communities in STEM by working with trainees both within and outside of classroom settings. This goal of this project is to increase understanding of how the processing of environmental stimuli by the brain initiates neuroendocrine changes, triggers gonadal development, and reorganizes neural networks. L. dalli are marine Teleost fish that live in polygamous social hierarchies comprising of a single dominant male and multiple subordinate female fish. Disruption of these hierarchies causes immediate changes in behavioral phenotypes driven by social contests in an effort to reestablish a stable social hierarchy. For example, in a group with more than one male the more subordinate male naturally transforms into a female, and in a group without a male the most dominant female transforms into a male. The plasticity of these fish in response to changes in their social environment presents an ideal opportunity to investigate the neuroendocrine process of sexual development and adult neurogenesis as mediated by dynamic social environments. This project seeks to better understand how the higher-order social structure of L. dalli affects biological variation as shaped by hormonal environments and social pressures. This work will enhance scientific understanding of phenotypic plasticity at multiple levels of biological organization. This work also enhances trainee participation through instruction of cohort-based research courses and with individual mentorship. The fellow will also establish a cohesive, state-wide postdoctoral community to further STEM research and innovation in the region. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.