CONVERGENT NEURAL EXPRESSION DURING PARENTAL CARE IN THREE NEOTROPICAL FROG SPECIES

• Grant number: 25/01119-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Post-doctor
• Start date: October 27, 2025
• End date: October 26, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Ecology
• Principal Investigator: Luis Felipe de Toledo Ramos Pereira
• Grantee: Juan Fernando Cuestas Carrillo
• Supervisor: Eva K Fischer
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biologia (IB). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of California, Davis (UC Davis), United States
• Associated to the scholarship: 24/01024-5 - Evolutionary and adaptive aspects of parental care in foam-nesting frogs (Leptodactylidae), BP.PD

Abstract

Parental care is considered an evolutionary advantage that increases offspring survival, benefiting the offspring's fitness in exchange of a parental cost. This behavior has been extensively studied in mammals and birds, while other groups, such as amphibians, received comparatively less attention. To successfully perform parental care, parents undergo diverse behavioral, anatomical, and physiological changes that are preceded by the activation of brain genes. The preoptic area of the attendant frog's brain has been identified for presenting differential expression during parental care. This study aims to analyze the transcripts of the preoptic area in attendant parents from three species of neotropical frogs: Leptodactylus podicipinus (female parental care), Dendrobates tinctorius (male parental care), and Eleutherodactylus coqui (male parental care). We expected to find a conserved gene expression signature associated with parental care. Starting with Vasopressin and gonadotropin-releasing hormone, factors associated with parental care, as all three species may benefit from increased expression of these factors, despite their distinct parental care behaviors.