Journal
ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE
Volume 4, Issue 12, Pages -Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rsos.171558
Keywords
anxiety; defensive behaviour; glutamate; neuromodulation; predation
Categories
Funding
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
- Universite de Bourgogne Franche-Comte
- ANR [ANR-13-BSV7-0004-01]
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Anxiety is an emotional state generally expressed as sustained apprehension of the environment and elevated vigilance. It has been widely reported in vertebrates and, more recently, in a few invertebrate species. However, its fitness value remains elusive. We investigated anxiety-like behaviour and its consequences in an amphipod crustacean, using electric shock as aversive stimuli, and pharmacological assays. An anxiety-like state induced by electric shocks in Gammarus fossarum was expressed through increased sheltering behaviour in the absence of predation risk, thereby showing the pervasive nature of such behavioural response. Increasing the number of electric shocks both increased refuge use and delayed behavioural recovery. The behavioural effect of electric shock was mitigated by pre-treatment with LY354740, a metabotropic glutamate receptor group II/III agonist. Importantly, we found that this modulation of decision-making under an anxiety-like state resulted in an increased survival to predation in microcosm experiments. This study confirms the interest in taking an evolutionary view to the study of anxiety and calls for further investigation on the costs counterbalancing the survival benefit of an elevated anxiety level evidenced here.
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