RNAseq-ing a more integrative understanding of animal behavior

•Burgeoning sequencing technologies are changing the study of animal behavior.•Behavioral traits are likely to result from epistatic relationships among genes.•RNAseq can bring us closer to understanding these complex systems.•Such tools can facilitate a more integrative understanding of animal behavior.•Gene-behavior interactions can benefit from hypothesis-driven and experimental study.

Burgeoning sequencing technologies are driving a genomic revolution that provides the potential for a deeper and more integrative understanding of animal behavior. Behavioral traits are likely to result from epistatic relationships among genes, and techniques like RNA sequencing (RNAseq) can bring us closer to understanding these systems. RNAseq can reveal all mRNA produced at a specific sampling point, exposing correlations between genes or genetic networks and behavioral phenotypes. This technology is becoming increasingly available to biologists studying nontraditional model organisms and can unearth important species-specific genetic regulators and interactions that may have been previously overlooked with only candidate gene investigations. Initial description of gene expression associated with a given behavior, followed by hypothesis-driven approaches and experimental manipulations, can now provide one of the most in-depth explorations of bidirectional interactions between genes and animal behavior.