Current Research in Insect Science最新文献

{"title":"Cognitive abilities related to foraging behavior in Vespula vulgaris (Hymenoptera: Vespidae)","authors":"Maria Celeste Manattini,&nbsp;Micaela Buteler,&nbsp;Mariana Lozada","doi":"10.1016/j.cris.2024.100088","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cris.2024.100088","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><em>Vespula vulgaris</em> is an invasive social wasp that has become established in many parts of the world. Plastic cognitive systems are expected to be advantageous for invasive species, given that they continuously face dynamic and unpredictable environments. We analyzed foraging behavior associated with undepleted and depleted resources. The wasps were trained to associate a certain location with food and we recorded their behavior after successive displacement of it. We also studied how long wasps continued to search for food that was no longer available and whether it was dependent on experience. We found that when wasps associated a certain location with food, they returned to the same site even though food was no longer available or had been displaced. Handling time remained constant, while relocation time and learning flights decreased with experience. With a food position change, learning flights increased and searching time varied with experience. When food was removed, hovering and landings were greatest in wasps that had the most experience with the resource, although extinction of the searching response was not dependent on experience. Our results illustrate the plasticity of wasp behavior in uncertain foraging contexts, which could have allowed the species to establish successfully in new habitats.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":34629,"journal":{"name":"Current Research in Insect Science","volume":"6 ","pages":"Article 100088"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666515824000180/pdfft?md5=2f482506c4059f42ec0427a7a4ebc308&pid=1-s2.0-S2666515824000180-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141951482","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Flight-reproduction trade-offs are weak in a field cage experiment across multiple Drosophila species","authors":"Liana I. De Araujo,&nbsp;Minette Karsten,&nbsp;John S. Terblanche","doi":"10.1016/j.cris.2023.100060","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cris.2023.100060","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Flight-reproduction trade-offs, such that more mobile individuals sacrifice reproductive output (e.g., fecundity) or incur fitness costs, are well-studied in a handful of wing-dimorphic model systems. However, these trade-offs have not been systematically assessed across reproduction-related traits and taxa in wing monomorphic species despite having broad implications for the ecology and evolution of pterygote insect species.</p><p>Here we therefore determined the prevalence, magnitude and direction of flight-reproduction trade-offs on several fitness-related traits in a semi-field setting by comparing disperser and resident flies from repeated releases of five wild-caught, laboratory-reared <em>Drosophila</em> species, and explicitly controlling for a suite of potential confounding effects (maternal effects, recent thermal history) and potential morphological covariates (wing-loading, body mass).</p><p>We found almost no systematic differences in reproductive output (egg production), reproductive fitness (offspring survival), or longevity between flying (disperser) and resident flies in our replicated releases, even if adjusting for potential morphological variation. After correction for false discovery rates, none of the five species showed evidence of a significant fitness trade-off associated with increased flight (sustained, simulated voluntary field dispersal).</p><p>Our results therefore suggest that flight-reproduction trade-offs are not as common as might have been expected when assessed systematically across species and under the relatively standardized conditions and field setting employed here, at least not in the genus <em>Drosophila</em>. The magnitude and direction of potential dispersal- or flight-induced trade-offs, and the conditions that promote them, clearly require closer scrutiny.</p><p>We argue that flight or dispersal is either genuinely cheaper than expected, or the costs manifest differently than those assessed here. Lost opportunities (i.e., time spent on mate-finding, mating or foraging) or nutrient-poor conditions could promote fitness costs to dispersal in our study system and that could be explored in future.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":34629,"journal":{"name":"Current Research in Insect Science","volume":"3 ","pages":"Article 100060"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49774045","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Field bands of marching locust juveniles show carbohydrate, not protein, limitation","authors":"Arianne J. Cease ,&nbsp;Eduardo V. Trumper ,&nbsp;Héctor Medina ,&nbsp;Fernando Copa Bazán ,&nbsp;Jorge Frana ,&nbsp;Jon Harrison ,&nbsp;Nelson Joaquin ,&nbsp;Jennifer Learned ,&nbsp;Mónica Roca ,&nbsp;Julio E. Rojas ,&nbsp;Stav Talal ,&nbsp;Rick P. Overson","doi":"10.1016/j.cris.2023.100069","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cris.2023.100069","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Locusts are grasshoppers that migrate <em>en masse</em> and devastate food security, yet little is known about the nutritional needs of marching bands in nature. While it has been hypothesized that protein limitation promotes locust marching behavior, migration is fueled by dietary carbohydrates. We studied South American Locust (<em>Schistocerca cancellata</em>) bands at eight sites across Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay. Bands ate most frequently from dishes containing carbohydrate artificial diets and minimally from balanced, protein, or control (vitamins and salts) dishes—indicating carbohydrate hunger. This hunger for carbohydrates is likely explained by the observation that local vegetation was generally protein-biased relative to locusts’ preferred protein to carbohydrate ratio. This study highlights the importance of studying the nutritional ecology of animals in their environment and suggests that carbohydrate limitation may be a common pattern for migrating insect herbivores.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":34629,"journal":{"name":"Current Research in Insect Science","volume":"4 ","pages":"Article 100069"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49775618","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Invasive alien insects represent a clear but variable threat to biodiversity","authors":"David A. Clarke ,&nbsp;Melodie A. McGeoch","doi":"10.1016/j.cris.2023.100065","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cris.2023.100065","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Invasive alien insects are an important yet understudied component of the general threat that biological invasions pose to biodiversity. We quantified the breadth and level of this threat by performing environmental impact assessments using a modified version of the Environmental Impact Assessment for Alien Taxa (EICAT) framework. This represents the largest effort to date on quantify the environmental impacts of invasive alien insects. Using a relatively large and taxonomically representative set of insect species that have established non-native populations around the globe, we tested hypotheses on: (1) socioeconomic and (2) taxonomic biases, (3) relationship between range size and impact severity and (4) island susceptibility. Socioeconomic pests had marginally more environmental impact information than non-pests and, as expected, impact information was geographically and taxonomically skewed. Species with larger introduced ranges were more likely, on average, to have the most severe local environmental impacts (i.e. a global maximum impact severity of ‘Major’). The island susceptibility hypothesis found no support, and both island and mainland systems experience similar numbers of high severity impacts. These results demonstrate the high variability, both within and across species, in the ways and extents to which invasive insects impact biodiversity, even within the highest profile invaders. However, the environmental impact knowledge base requires greater taxonomic and geographic coverage, so that hypotheses about invasion impact can be developed towards identifying generalities in the biogeography of invasion impacts.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":34629,"journal":{"name":"Current Research in Insect Science","volume":"4 ","pages":"Article 100065"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10410178/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9969645","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Molecular signatures of diapause in the Asian longhorned beetle: Gene expression","authors":"Alex S. Torson ,&nbsp;Susan Bowman ,&nbsp;Daniel Doucet ,&nbsp;Amanda D. Roe ,&nbsp;Brent J. Sinclair","doi":"10.1016/j.cris.2023.100054","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cris.2023.100054","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Most previous studies on gene expression during insect diapause do not address among-tissue variation in physiological processes. We measured transcriptomic changes during larval diapause in the Asian longhorned beetle, <em>Anoplophora glabripennis</em> (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae)<em>.</em> We conducted RNA-seq on fat body, the supraesophageal ganglion, midgut, hindgut, and Malpighian tubules during pre-diapause, diapause maintenance, post-diapause quiescence, and post-diapause development. We observed a small, but consistent, proportion of genes within each gene expression profile that were shared among tissues, lending support for a core set of diapause-associated genes whose expression is tissue-independent. We evaluated the overarching hypotheses that diapause would be associated with cell cycle arrest, developmental arrest, and increased stress tolerance and found evidence of repressed TOR and insulin signaling, reduced cell cycle activity and increased capacity of stress response via heat shock protein expression and remodeling of the cytoskeleton. However, these processes varied among tissues, with the brain and fat body appearing to maintain higher levels of cellular activity during diapause than the midgut or Malpighian tubules. We also observed temperature-dependent changes in gene expression during diapause maintenance, particularly in genes related to the heat shock response and MAPK, insulin, and TOR signaling pathways. Additionally, we provide evidence for epigenetic reorganization during the diapause/post-diapause quiescence transition and expression of genes involved in post-translational modification, highlighting the need for investigations of the protein activity of these candidate genes and processes. We conclude that diapause development is coordinated via diverse tissue-specific gene expression profiles and that canonical diapause phenotypes vary among tissues.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":34629,"journal":{"name":"Current Research in Insect Science","volume":"3 ","pages":"Article 100054"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10074507/pdf/main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9641628","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Indigenous and introduced Collembola differ in desiccation resistance but not its plasticity in response to temperature","authors":"Steven L Chown ,&nbsp;Charlene Janion-Scheepers ,&nbsp;Angus Marshall ,&nbsp;Ian J Aitkenhead ,&nbsp;Rebecca Hallas ,&nbsp;WP Amy Liu ,&nbsp;Laura M Phillips","doi":"10.1016/j.cris.2022.100051","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cris.2022.100051","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Biological invasions have significant ecological and economic impacts. Much attention is therefore focussed on predicting establishment and invasion success. Trait-based approaches are showing much promise, but are mostly restricted to investigations of plants. Although the application of these approaches to animals is growing rapidly, it is rare for arthropods and restricted mostly to investigations of thermal tolerance. Here we study the extent to which desiccation tolerance and its phenotypic plasticity differ between introduced (nine species) and indigenous (seven species) Collembola, specifically testing predictions of the ‘ideal weed’ and ‘phenotypic plasticity’ hypotheses of invasion biology. We do so on the F2 generation of adults in a full factorial design across two temperatures, to elicit desiccation responses, for the phenotypic plasticity trials. We also determine whether basal desiccation resistance responds to thermal laboratory natural selection. We first show experimentally that acclimation to different temperatures elicits changes to cuticular structure and function that are typically associated with water balance, justifying our experimental approach. Our main findings reveal that basal desiccation resistance differs, on average, between the indigenous and introduced species, but that this difference is weaker at higher temperatures, and is driven by particular taxa, as revealed by phylogenetic generalised least squares approaches. By contrast, the extent or form of phenotypic plasticity does not differ between the two groups, with a ‘hotter is better’ response being most common. Beneficial acclimation is characteristic of only a single species. Laboratory natural selection had little influence on desiccation resistance over 8–12 generations, suggesting that environmental filtering rather than adaptation to new environments may be an important factor influencing Collembola invasions.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":34629,"journal":{"name":"Current Research in Insect Science","volume":"3 ","pages":"Article 100051"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/35/73/main.PMC9800180.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10473142","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Letting ChatGPT do your science is fraudulent (and a bad idea), but AI-generated text can enhance inclusiveness in publishing","authors":"Brent J. Sinclair","doi":"10.1016/j.cris.2023.100057","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cris.2023.100057","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":34629,"journal":{"name":"Current Research in Insect Science","volume":"3 ","pages":"Article 100057"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/d0/45/main.PMC10172689.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9470872","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Phenotypic extremes or extreme phenotypes? On the use of large and small-bodied “phenocopied” Drosophila melanogaster males in studies of sexual selection and conflict","authors":"Kyle Schang ,&nbsp;Renée Garant ,&nbsp;Tristan A.F. Long","doi":"10.1016/j.cris.2023.100052","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cris.2023.100052","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In the fruit fly, <em>Drosophila melanogaster</em>, variation in body size is influenced by a number of different factors and may be strongly associated with individual condition, performance and success in reproductive competitions. Consequently, intra-sexual variation in size in this model species has been frequently explored in order to better understand how sexual selection and sexual conflict may operate and shape evolutionary trajectories. However, measuring individual flies can often be logistically complicated and inefficient, which can result in limited sample sizes. Instead, many experiments use large and/or small body sizes that are created by manipulating the developmental conditions experienced during the larval stages, resulting in “phenocopied” flies whose phenotypes resemble what is seen at the extremes of a population's size distribution. While this practice is fairly common, there has been remarkedly few direct tests to empirically compare the behaviour or performance of phenocopied flies to similarly-sized individuals that grew up under typical developmental conditions. Contrary to assumptions that phenocopied flies are reasonable approximations, we found that both large and small-bodied phenocopied males frequently differed from their standard development equivalents in their mating frequencies, their lifetime reproductive successes, and in their effects on the fecundity of the females they interacted with. Our results highlight the complicated contributions of environment and genotype to the expression of body size phenotypes and lead us to strongly urge caution in the interpretation of studies solely replying upon phenocopied individuals.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":34629,"journal":{"name":"Current Research in Insect Science","volume":"3 ","pages":"Article 100052"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49773772","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Differential gene expression underlying the biosynthesis of Dufour's gland signals in Bombus impatiens","authors":"Nathan Derstine,&nbsp;David Galbraith,&nbsp;Gabriel Villar,&nbsp;Etya Amsalem","doi":"10.1016/j.cris.2023.100056","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cris.2023.100056","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Pheromones regulating social behavior are one of the most explored phenomena in social insects. However, compound identity, biosynthesis and their genetic basis are known in only a handful of species. Here we examined the gene expression associated with pheromone biosynthesis of two main chemical classes: esters and terpenes, using the social bee <em>Bombus impatiens</em>. We conducted chemical and RNA-seq analyses of the Dufour's gland, an exocrine gland producing a plethora of pheromones regulating social behavior in hymenopteran species. The Dufour's gland contains mostly long-chained hydrocarbons, terpenes and esters that signal reproductive and social status in several bee species. In bumble bees, the Dufour's gland contains queen- and worker-specific esters, in addition to terpenes and terpene-esters only found in gynes and queens. These compounds are assumed to be synthesized de novo in the gland, however, their genetic basis is unknown. A whole transcriptome gene expression analysis of the gland in queens, gynes, queenless and queenright workers showed distinct transcriptomic profiles, with thousands of differentially expressed genes between the groups. Workers and queens express genes associated with key enzymes in the biosynthesis of wax esters, while queens and gynes preferentially express key genes in terpene biosynthesis. Overall, our data demonstrate gland-specific regulation of chemical signals associated with social behavior and identifies candidate genes and pathways regulating caste-specific chemical signals in social insects.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":34629,"journal":{"name":"Current Research in Insect Science","volume":"3 ","pages":"Article 100056"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49815440","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Structure of an antennally-expressed carboxylesterase suggests lepidopteran odorant degrading enzymes are broadly tuned","authors":"Jacob A. Corcoran ,&nbsp;Cyril Hamiaux ,&nbsp;Nicoletta Faraone ,&nbsp;Christer Löfstedt ,&nbsp;Colm Carraher","doi":"10.1016/j.cris.2023.100062","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cris.2023.100062","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Insects rely on the detection of chemical cues present in the environment to guide their foraging and reproductive behaviour. As such, insects have evolved a sophisticated chemical processing system in their antennae comprised of several types of olfactory proteins. Of these proteins, odorant degrading enzymes are responsible for metabolising the chemical cues within the antennae, thereby maintaining olfactory system function. Members of the carboxyl/cholinesterase gene family are known to degrade odorant molecules with acetate-ester moieties that function as host recognition cues or sex pheromones, however, their specificity for these compounds remains unclear. Here, we evaluate expression levels of this gene family in the light-brown apple moth, <em>Epiphyas postvittana,</em> via RNAseq and identify putative odorant degrading enzymes. We then solve the apo-structure for EposCCE24 by X-ray crystallography to a resolution of 2.43 Å and infer substrate specificity based on structural characteristics of the enzyme's binding pocket. The specificity of EposCCE24 was validated by testing its ability to degrade biologically relevant and non-relevant sex pheromone components and plant volatiles using GC–MS. We found that EposCCE24 is neither capable of discriminating between linear acetate-ester odorant molecules of varying chain length, nor between molecules with varying double bond positions. EposCCE24 efficiently degraded both plant volatiles and sex pheromone components containing acetate-ester functional groups, confirming its role as a broadly-tuned odorant degrading enzyme in the moth olfactory organ.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":34629,"journal":{"name":"Current Research in Insect Science","volume":"3 ","pages":"Article 100062"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/7d/c9/main.PMC10313914.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9802093","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}