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#SICB2023: Kaylene Yamada discusses strengths and weaknesses of studying behavior in lab and field. Useful examples of phenotypes that are not visible in the lab, but immediately become apparent in natural or seminatural environments! Focus: Peromyscus. Love this kind of work!
Holy crap she took SO MANY msrs of condition, metabolism and energy balance from mice in three populations in her enclosures. What a data set!
Lab mice have significantly less grip strength, higher hematocrit & RMR than wild mice; semiwild mice mostly cluster with wild mice.
Mitochondrial performance is more complex: lab and wild have significantly lower respiration than seminatural! Wild mice also had higher liver respiration than the other two.
For some things, seminatural enclosures really help! But not so much for mitochondria, alas.
Seminatural deer mice were born in the lab and acclimated in the enclosures for 6mo before measurements were taken.
"We wanted to capture wild mice and introduce them into the semi natural enclosures, but we couldn't get IACUC approval for that because they are very, very dirty."
There were so many memorable quotes at #SICB2023 this year...