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Ren Q, Ma L, Zhang X, Chen L, Mao Z, Li D, Zhang L, Jiang X. Effect of Juvenile Hormone on Worker Behavioral Transition in the Red Imported Fire Ant, Solenopsis invicta (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Insects 2023; 14:934. [PMID: 38132607 PMCID: PMC10743645 DOI: 10.3390/insects14120934] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/08/2023] [Revised: 12/03/2023] [Accepted: 12/05/2023] [Indexed: 12/23/2023]
Abstract
The division of labor among workers is a defining characteristic of social insects and plays a pivotal role in enhancing the competitive advantage of their colony. Juvenile hormone (JH) has long been hypothesized to be the essential driver in regulating the division of labor due to its ability to accelerate behavioral transitions in social insects, such as honeybees. The regulation of behavioral transitions by JH in the red imported fire ant (RIFA), Solenopsis invicta, a typical social pest, is unclear. Through video capture and analysis, we investigated the effects of the juvenile hormone analogue (JHA) methoprene on brood care, phototaxis behavior, and threat responsiveness of RIFA nurse workers. Our results showed that the JHA application significantly reduced the time and frequency of brood care behavior by nurse workers while increasing their walking distance and activity time in the light area. Additionally, the application of JHA made ants become excited, indicating a significant improvement in their activity level (movement distance, time, and speed). Furthermore, it was observed that the application of JHA did not affect the threat responsiveness of nurse workers towards stimuli (nestmates or non-nestmates). Our study demonstrates that the application of JHA reduced brood care behavior and enhanced phototaxis in nurse workers, which may reveal the role of JH in facilitating behavioral transitions in RIFA from intranidal tasks to extranidal activity. This study provides an experimental basis for further elucidating the mechanism underlying the division of labor in social insects.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qilin Ren
- State Key Laboratory for Biology of Plant Diseases and Insect Pests, Institute of Plant Protection, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science, Beijing 100193, China; (Q.R.); (L.M.); (X.Z.)
| | - Lin Ma
- State Key Laboratory for Biology of Plant Diseases and Insect Pests, Institute of Plant Protection, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science, Beijing 100193, China; (Q.R.); (L.M.); (X.Z.)
| | - Xiaolong Zhang
- State Key Laboratory for Biology of Plant Diseases and Insect Pests, Institute of Plant Protection, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science, Beijing 100193, China; (Q.R.); (L.M.); (X.Z.)
| | - Libiao Chen
- Guangxi Green City Pest Control Technology Co., Ltd., Nanning 530007, China;
| | - Zhigang Mao
- Guangxi Beitou Urban Environmental Governance Group Co., Ltd., Nanning 530000, China; (Z.M.); (D.L.)
| | - Dongdong Li
- Guangxi Beitou Urban Environmental Governance Group Co., Ltd., Nanning 530000, China; (Z.M.); (D.L.)
| | - Lei Zhang
- State Key Laboratory for Biology of Plant Diseases and Insect Pests, Institute of Plant Protection, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science, Beijing 100193, China; (Q.R.); (L.M.); (X.Z.)
| | - Xingfu Jiang
- State Key Laboratory for Biology of Plant Diseases and Insect Pests, Institute of Plant Protection, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science, Beijing 100193, China; (Q.R.); (L.M.); (X.Z.)
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Li C, Sun T, Zhang Y, Gao Y, Sun Z, Li W, Cheng H, Gu Y, Abumaria N. A neural circuit for regulating a behavioral switch in response to prolonged uncontrollability in mice. Neuron 2023; 111:2727-2741.e7. [PMID: 37352858 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2023.05.023] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/18/2022] [Revised: 01/13/2023] [Accepted: 05/26/2023] [Indexed: 06/25/2023]
Abstract
Persistence in the face of failure helps to overcome challenges. But the ability to adjust behavior or even give up when the task is uncontrollable has advantages. How the mammalian brain switches behavior when facing uncontrollability remains an open question. We generated two mouse models of behavioral transition from action to no-action during exposure to a prolonged experience with an uncontrollable outcome. The transition was not caused by pain desensitization or muscle fatigue and was not a depression-/learned-helplessness-like behavior. Noradrenergic neurons projecting to GABAergic neurons within the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) are key regulators of this behavior. Fiber photometry, microdialysis, mini-two-photon microscopy, and tetrode/optrode in vivo recording in freely behaving mice revealed that the reduction of norepinephrine and downregulation of alpha 1 receptor in the OFC reduced the number and activity of GABAergic neurons necessary for driving action behavior resulting in behavioral transition. These findings define a circuit governing behavioral switch in response to prolonged uncontrollability.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chaoqun Li
- State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology and MOE Frontiers Center for Brain Science, Institutes of Brain Science, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China
| | - Tianping Sun
- State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology and MOE Frontiers Center for Brain Science, Institutes of Brain Science, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China
| | - Yimu Zhang
- State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology and MOE Frontiers Center for Brain Science, Institutes of Brain Science, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China
| | - Yan Gao
- State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology and MOE Frontiers Center for Brain Science, Institutes of Brain Science, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China
| | - Zhou Sun
- State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology and MOE Frontiers Center for Brain Science, Institutes of Brain Science, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China
| | - Wei Li
- State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology and MOE Frontiers Center for Brain Science, Institutes of Brain Science, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China
| | - Heping Cheng
- State Key Laboratory of Membrane Biology, Institute of Molecular Medicine, Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, College of Future Technology, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China; Research Unit of Mitochondria in Brain Diseases, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, PKU-Nanjing Institute of Translational Medicine, Nanjing 211500, China
| | - Yu Gu
- State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology and MOE Frontiers Center for Brain Science, Institutes of Brain Science, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China.
| | - Nashat Abumaria
- State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology and MOE Frontiers Center for Brain Science, Institutes of Brain Science, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China.
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Echigoya S, Sato K, Kishida O, Nakagaki T, Nishigami Y. Switching of behavioral modes and their modulation by a geometrical cue in the ciliate Stentor coeruleus. Front Cell Dev Biol 2022; 10:1021469. [PMID: 36393838 PMCID: PMC9663998 DOI: 10.3389/fcell.2022.1021469] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/17/2022] [Accepted: 10/17/2022] [Indexed: 08/14/2023] Open
Abstract
Protists ubiquitously live in nature and play key roles in the food web chain. Their habitats consist of various geometrical structures, such as porous media and rigid surfaces, affecting their motilities. A kind of protist, Stentor coeruleus, exhibits free swimming and adhering for feeding. Under environmental and culture conditions, these organisms are often found in sediments with complex geometries. The determination of anchoring location is essential for their lives. However, the factors that induce the behavioral transition from swimming to adhering are still unknown. In this study, we quantitatively characterized the behavioral transitions in S. coeruleus and observed the behavior in a chamber with dead ends made by a simple structure mimicking the environmental structures. As a result, the cell adheres and feeds in narrow spaces between the structure and the chamber wall. It may be reasonable for the organism to hide itself from predators and capture prey in these spaces. The behavioral strategy for the exploration and exploitation of spaces with a wide variety of geometries in their habitats is discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Syun Echigoya
- Graduate School of Life Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan
| | - Katsuhiko Sato
- Graduate School of Life Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan
- Research Institute for Electronic Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan
| | - Osamu Kishida
- Field Science Center for Northern Biosphere, Tomakomai Experimental Forest, Hokkaido University, Tomakomai, Japan
| | - Toshiyuki Nakagaki
- Graduate School of Life Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan
- Research Institute for Electronic Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan
| | - Yukinori Nishigami
- Graduate School of Life Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan
- Research Institute for Electronic Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan
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Chen YJ, Li YJ, Wu S, Yang WC, Miao J, Gu SH, Li JH, Miao XQ, Li X. Transcriptional identification of differentially expressed genes associated with division of labor in Apis cerana cerana. Insect Sci 2021; 28:457-471. [PMID: 32112590 DOI: 10.1111/1744-7917.12773] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/02/2019] [Revised: 01/02/2020] [Accepted: 02/18/2020] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
Workers of Apis cerana cerana undergo an in-hive nursing to outdoor foraging transition, but the genes underlying this age-related transition remain largely unknown. Here, we sequenced the head transcriptomes of its 7-day-old normal nurses, 18- and 22-day-old normal foragers, 7-day-old precocious foragers and 22-day-old over-aged nurses to unravel the genes associated with this transition. Mapping of the sequence reads to Apis mellifera genome showed that the three types of foragers had a greater percentage of reads from annotated exons and intergenic regions, whereas the two types of nurses had a greater percentage of reads from introns. Pair- and group-wise comparisons of the five transcriptomes revealed 59 uniquely expressed genes (18 in nurses and 41 in foragers) and 14 nurse- and 15 forager-upregulated genes. The uniquely expressed genes are usually low-abundance long noncoding RNAs, transcription factors, transcription coactivators, RNA-binding proteins, kinases or phosphatases that are involved in signaling and/or regulation, whereas the nurse- or forager-upregulated genes are often high-abundance downstream genes that directly perform the tasks of nurses or foragers. Taken together, these results suggest that the nurse-forager transition is coordinated by a social signal-triggered epigenetic shift from introns to exons/intergenic regions and the resulting transcriptional shift between the nurse- and forager-associated genes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yi-Jie Chen
- College of Bee Science, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
- State Key Laboratory for Biology of Plant Diseases and Insect Pests, Institute of Plant Protection, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Ying-Jiao Li
- College of Bee Science, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
| | - Shuang Wu
- College of Bee Science, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
- State Key Laboratory for Biology of Plant Diseases and Insect Pests, Institute of Plant Protection, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Wen-Chao Yang
- College of Bee Science, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
| | - Jing Miao
- College of Bee Science, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
| | - Shao-Hua Gu
- State Key Laboratory for Biology of Plant Diseases and Insect Pests, Institute of Plant Protection, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Jiang-Hong Li
- College of Bee Science, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
| | - Xiao-Qing Miao
- College of Bee Science, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
| | - Xianchun Li
- Department of Entomology and BIO5 Institute, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
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