Proteomics in behavioral ecology

Proteomics refers to the study of the protein complement expressed by a genome and aims to understand protein expression, regulation, function, and interactions. Expression proteomics affords an unbiased image of the proteins potentially associated with or responsible for specific behaviors without requiring previous knowledge of the nature of these molecules. Recent technological advances in mass spectrometry, bioinformatics, and genome sequencing have made proteomics accessible to the study of non-model species and to different fields of biological research. In this review, we call the attention of behavioral ecologists to proteomic technologies and we highlight the great potential they offer for interdisciplinary research by 1) pointing out the advantages of the large-scale study of proteins, 2) suggesting research topics best tackled by this approach, and 3) indicating some of the techniques available for the identification and quantification of proteins. We also show how proteomic approaches can help formulate and test hypotheses on the mechanisms underlying behavior and develop experimental tools which allow the manipulation of behavior.