Search results for "Sect"
showing 10 items of 10622 documents
Long-Term Prophylactic Antibiotic Treatment: Effects on Survival, Immunocompetence and Reproduction Success of Parasemia plantaginis (Lepidoptera: Er…
2016
Hundreds of insect species are nowadays reared under laboratory conditions. Rearing of insects always implicates the risk of diseases, among which microbial infections are the most frequent and difficult problems. Although there are effective prophylactic treatments, the side effects of applied antibiotics are not well understood. We examined the effect of prophylactic antibiotic treatment on the overwintering success of wood tiger moth (Parasemia plantaginis) larvae, and the postdiapause effect on their life-history traits. Four weeks before hibernation larvae were treated with a widely used antibiotic (fumagillin). We monitored moths' survival and life-history traits during the following …
Coping with the climate: cuticular hydrocarbon acclimation of ants under constant and fluctuating conditions
2018
International audience; Terrestrial arthropods achieve waterproofing by a layer of cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs). At the same time, CHCs also serve as communication signals. To maintain waterproofing under different climate conditions, insects adjust the chemical composition of their CHC layer, but this may affect the communication via CHCs. The detailed acclimatory changes of CHCs and how these influence their physical properties are still unknown. Here, we studied acclimation in two closely related ant species with distinct CHC profiles, Myrmica rubra and Myrmica ruginodis, in response to constant or fluctuating temperature and humidity regimes. We measured how acclimation affected CHC co…
Gasmin ( BV2-5 ), a polydnaviral-acquired gene in Spodoptera exigua. Trade-off in the defense against bacterial and viral infections
2015
Thousands of Hymenopteran endoparasitoids have developed a unique symbiotic relationship with viruses named polydnavirus (PDVs). These viruses immunocompromise the lepidopteran host allowing the survival of the wasp eggs. In a previous work, we have shown the horizontal transfer of some polydnaviral genes into the genome of the Lepidoptera, Spodoptera exigua. One of these genes, BV2-5 (named gasmin) interferes with actin polymerization, negatively affecting the multiplication of baculovirus in cell culture. In this work, we have focused in the study of the effect of Gasmin expression on different aspects of the baculovirus production. In addition, and since actin polymerization is crucial f…
How does climate change affect social insects?
2020
Climate change poses a major threat to global biodiversity, already causing sharp declines of populations and species. In some social insect species we already see advanced phenologies, changes in distribution ranges, and changes in abundance Rafferty (2017) and Diamond et al. (2017). Physiologically, social insects are no different from solitary insects, but they possess a number of characteristics that distinguish their response to climate change. Here, we examine these traits, which might enable them to cope better with climate change than solitary insects, but only in the short term. In addition, we discuss how climate change will alter biotic interactions and ecosystem functions, and h…
Ecology and Evolution of Communication in Social Insects
2016
Insect life strategies comprise all levels of sociality from solitary to eusocial, in which individuals form persistent groups and divide labor. With increasing social complexity, the need to communicate a greater diversity of messages arose to coordinate division of labor, group cohesion, and concerted actions. Here we summarize the knowledge on prominent messages in social insects that inform about reproduction, group membership, resource locations, and threats and discuss potential evolutionary trajectories of each message in the context of social complexity.
Using metabarcoding to reveal and quantify plant-pollinator interactions.
2016
AbstractGiven the ongoing decline of both pollinators and plants, it is crucial to implement effective methods to describe complex pollination networks across time and space in a comprehensive and high-throughput way. Here we tested if metabarcoding may circumvent the limits of conventional methodologies in detecting and quantifying plant-pollinator interactions. Metabarcoding experiments on pollen DNA mixtures described a positive relationship between the amounts of DNA from focal species and the number of trnL and ITS1 sequences yielded. The study of pollen loads of insects captured in plant communities revealed that as compared to the observation of visits, metabarcoding revealed 2.5 tim…
Evolutionary importance of intraspecific variation in sex pheromones
2021
Sex pheromones in many insect species are important species-recognition signals that attract conspecifics and inhibit attraction between heterospecifics; therefore, sex pheromones have predominantly been considered to evolve due to interactions between species. Recent research, however, is uncovering roles for these signals in mate choice, and that variation within and between populations can be drivers of species evolution. Variation in pheromone communication channels arises from a combination of context-dependent, condition-dependent, or genetic mechanisms in both signalers and receivers. Variation can affect mate choice and thus gene flow between individuals and populations, affecting s…
Insect societies fight back: the evolution of defensive traits against social parasites
2018
Insect societies face many social parasites that exploit their altruistic behaviours or their resources. Due to the fitness costs these social parasites incur, hosts have evolved various behavioural, chemical, architectural and morphological defence traits. Similar to bacteria infecting multicellular hosts, social parasites have to successfully go through several steps to exploit their hosts. Here, we review how social insects try to interrupt this sequence of events. They can avoid parasite contact by choosing to nest in parasite-free locales or evade attacks by adapting their colony structure. Once social parasites attack, hosts attempt to detect them, which can be facilitated by adjustme…
Life history evolution in social insects: a female perspective
2016
Social insects are known for their unusual life histories with fecund, long-lived queens and sterile, short-lived workers. We review ultimate factors underlying variation in life history strategies in female social insects, whose social life reshapes common trade-offs, such as the one between fecundity and longevity. Interspecific life history variation is associated with colony size, mediated by changes in division of labour and extrinsic mortality. In addition to the ratio of juvenile to adult mortality, social factors such as queen number influence life history trajectories. We discuss two hypotheses explaining why queen fecundity and lifespan is higher in single-queen societies and sugg…
Social isolation causes downregulation of immune and stress response genes and behavioural changes in a social insect
2021
Humans and other social mammals experience isolation from their group as stressful, triggering behavioural and physiological anomalies that reduce fitness. While social isolation has been intensely studied in social mammals, it is less clear how social insects, which evolved sociality independently, respond to isolation. Here we examined whether the typical mammalian responses to social isolation, e.g., an impaired ability to interact socially and immune suppression are also found in social insects. We studied the consequences of social isolation on behaviour and brain gene expression in the ant Temnothorax nylanderi. Following isolation, workers interacted moderately less with adult nestma…