ORCID Profile
0000-0003-3561-1920
Current Organisations
University of Sydney
,
Macquarie University
,
University of Aberdeen
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Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2020
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 28-09-2018
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 26-07-2018
DOI: 10.1101/377986
Abstract: The majority of insect species have a clearly defined larval stage during development. Larval nutrition is crucial for in iduals’ growth and development, and larval foraging success often depends on both resource availability and competition for those resources. To date, however, little is known about how these factors interact to shape larval development and behaviour. Here we manipulated the density of larvae of the polyphagous fruit fly pest Bactrocera tryoni (‘Queensland fruit fly’), and the diet concentration of patches in a foraging arena to address this gap. Using advanced statistical methods of machine learning and linear regression models, we showed that high larval density results in increased larval aggregation across all diets except in extreme diet dilutions. Larval aggregation was positively associated with larval body mass across all diet concentrations except in extreme diet dilutions where this relationship was reversed. Larvae in low-density arenas also tended to aggregate while those in high-density arenas tended to disperse, an effect that was observed for all diet concentrations. Furthermore, larvae in high-density arenas displayed significant avoidance of low concentration diets – a behaviour that was not observed amongst larvae in low-density arenas. Thus, aggregation can help, rather than hinder, larval growth in high-density environments, and larvae may be better able to explore available nutrition when at high-density than when at low density.
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 17-12-2018
DOI: 10.1101/498493
Abstract: Immunity and nutrition are two essential modulators of in idual fitness However, while the implications of immune function and nutrition on an in idual s lifespan and reproduction are known, the interplay between feeding behaviour, infection, and immune function, remains poorly understood. In this study, we used the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, to investigate how infection through septic injury modulates nutritional intake, and how macronutrient balance affects survival to infection by the pathogenic Gram-positive bacterium Micrococcus luteus. Our results show that infected flies maintain carbohydrate intake, but reduce protein intake, thereby shifting from a protein-to-carbohydrate (P:C) ratio of ~1:4 to ~1:10 relative to non-infected and sham-infected flies. Strikingly, we found that the proportion of flies dying after M. luteus infection was significantly lower when flies were fed a low-P high-C diet, revealing that flies shift their macronutrient intake as means of nutritional self-medication against bacterial infection. This is likely due to the effects of macronutrient balance on the regulation of the constitutive expression of innate immune genes, as a low-P high-C diet was linked to an up-regulation in the expression of key antimicrobial peptides. Together, our results reveal the intricate relationship between macronutrient intake and resistance to infection, and integrate the molecular cross-talk between metabolic and immune pathways into the framework of nutritional immunology.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 09-2022
DOI: 10.1002/ECE3.9283
Abstract: Chinese sericulture relies in part on the rearing of the Chinese oak silkmoth Antheraea pernyi , an insect with key cultural and ecological roles. While feeding primarily on oak, Antheraea species are known to accept alternative hosts such as birch Betula sp with little to no apparent negative fitness consequences. This opens up the range of hostplants that could be used for large‐scale rearing of A. pernyi for silk production and food, or used by this species in possible invasions. To date, however, the natural history and ecology of A. pernyi remain subject of investigation. For instance, we still do not know how in iduals respond to crowding developmental environments, which is an important factor to consider for the ecology of the species as well as for commercial rearing. Here, I describe the implications of larval crowding to the survival and growth of A. pernyi larvae during early development. I show that higher crowding is associated with stronger negative effects on growth and survival, corroborating findings from other holometabolous insects. I then discuss the implications of this findings for our understanding of optimum larval crowding. Overall, the findings reveal important ecological information for an insect species key for provisioning and cultural ecosystem services.
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 09-01-2022
DOI: 10.1101/2022.01.07.475433
Abstract: Intraspecific competition at the larval stage is an important ecological factor affecting life-history, adaptation and evolutionary trajectory in holometabolous insects. However, the molecular pathways and physiological trade-offs underpinning these ecological processes are poorly characterised. We reared Drosophila melanogaster at three egg densities (5, 60 and 300 eggs/ml) and sequenced the transcriptomes of pooled third-instar larvae. We also examined emergence time, egg-to-adult viability, adult mass and adult sex-ratio at each density. Medium crowding had minor detrimental effects on adult phenotypes compared to low density and yielded 24 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) including several chitinase enzymes . In contrast, high crowding had substantial detrimental effects on adult phenotypes and yielded 2107 DEGs. Among these, upregulated gene sets were enriched in sugar, steroid and amino acid metabolism as well as DNA replication pathways, whereas downregulated gene sets were enriched in ABC transporters, Taurine, Toll/Imd signalling and P450 xenobiotics metabolism pathways. Overall, our findings show that larval overcrowding has a large consistent effect on several molecular pathways (i.e., core responses) with few pathways displaying density-specific regulation (i.e., idiosyncratic responses). This provides important insights into how holometabolous insects respond to intraspecific competition during development.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 08-09-2023
DOI: 10.1111/JEN.13184
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 17-01-2019
DOI: 10.1038/S41467-018-08113-W
Abstract: Polyandry prolongs sexual selection on males by forcing ejaculates to compete for fertilisation. Recent theory predicts that increasing polyandry may weaken pre-copulatory sexual selection on males and increase the relative importance of post-copulatory sexual selection, but experimental tests of this prediction are lacking. Here, we manipulate the polyandry levels in groups of Drosophila melanogaster by deletion of the female sex peptide receptor . We show that groups in which the sex-peptide-receptor is absent in females ( SPR- ) have higher polyandry, and – as a result – weaker pre-copulatory sexual selection on male mating success, compared to controls. Post-copulatory selection on male paternity share is relatively more important in SPR- groups, where males gain additional paternity by mating repeatedly with the same females. These results provide experimental evidence that elevated polyandry weakens pre-copulatory sexual selection on males, shifts selection to post-copulatory events, and that the sex peptide pathway can play a key role in modulating this process in Drosophila .
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 18-04-2022
Abstract: The molecular characterization of complex behaviours is a challenging task as a range of different factors are often involved to produce the observed phenotype. An established approach is to look at the overall levels of expression of brain genes—or ‘neurogenomics’—to select the best candidates that associate with patterns of interest. However, traditional neurogenomic analyses have some well‐known limitations: above all, the usually limited number of biological replicates compared to the number of genes tested—known as the “curse of dimensionality.” In this study we implemented a machine learning (ML) approach that can be used as a complement to more established methods of transcriptomic analyses. We tested three supervised learning algorithms (Random Forests, Lasso and Elastic net Regularized Generalized Linear Model, and Support Vector Machine) for their performance in the characterization of transcriptomic patterns and identification of genes associated with honeybee waggle dance. We then matched the results of these analyses with traditional outputs of differential gene expression analyses and identified two promising candidates for the neural regulation of the waggle dance: boss and hnRNP A1 . Overall, our study demonstrates the application of ML to analyse transcriptomics data and identify candidate genes underlying social behaviour. This approach has great potential for application to a wide range of different scenarios in evolutionary ecology, when investigating the genomic basis for complex phenotypic traits, and can present some clear advantages compared to the established tools of gene expression analysis, making it a valuable complement for future studies.
Publisher: Elsevier
Date: 2019
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 15-06-2017
DOI: 10.1038/S41598-017-03505-2
Abstract: Developmental conditions can strongly influence adult phenotypes and social interactions, which in turn affect key evolutionary processes such as sexual selection and sexual conflict. While the implications of social interactions in phenotypically mixed populations at the in idual level are increasingly well known, how these effects influence the fate of groups remains poorly understood, which limits our understanding of the broader ecological implications. To address this problem we manipulated adult phenotypes and social composition in Drosophila melanogaster – by experimentally manipulating the larval density of the group-members – and measured a range of group-level outcomes across the lifespan of groups. Adult groups composed of exclusively low larval-density in iduals showed high courtship levels, and low early reproductive rates, group growth rates, offspring mass and offspring eclosion success, relative to high larval-density or mixed larval-density groups. Furthermore, high larval-density groups had lower survival. Offspring mass increased with time, but at a reduced rate in groups when male group members (but not females) were from a mixture of larval-densities peak reproductive rates were also earlier in these groups. Our results suggest that that variation in developmental conditions experienced by adult group members can modify the reproductive output of groups.
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 07-2017
Abstract: There is increasing evidence of the far-reaching effects of gut bacteria on physiological and behavioural traits, yet the fitness-related consequences of changes in the gut bacteria composition of sexually interacting in iduals remain unknown. To address this question, we manipulated the gut microbiota of fruit flies, Drosophila melanogaster , by monoinfecting flies with either Acetobacter pomorum ( AP ) or Lactobacillus plantarum ( LP ) . Re-inoculated in iduals were paired in all treatment combinations. LP- infected males had longer mating duration and induced higher short-term offspring production in females compared with AP -infected males. Furthermore, females of either re-inoculation state mated with AP- infected males were more likely to have zero offspring after mating, suggesting a negative effect of AP on male fertility . Finally, we found that the effects of male and female gut bacteria interacted to modulate their daughters', but not sons' body mass, revealing a new trans-generational effect of parental gut microbiota. In conclusion, this study shows direct and trans-generational effects of the gut microbiota on mating and reproduction.
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 24-08-2020
DOI: 10.3390/MICROORGANISMS8091289
Abstract: The commensal microbiota is a key modulator of animal fitness, but little is known about the extent to which the parental microbiota influences fitness-related traits of future generations. We addressed this gap by manipulating the parental microbiota of a polyphagous fruit fly (Bactrocera tryoni) and measuring offspring developmental traits, body composition, and fecundity. We generated three parental microbiota treatments where parents had a microbiota that was non-manipulated (control), removed (axenic), or removed-and-reintroduced (reinoculation). We found that the percentage of egg hatching, of pupal production, and body weight of larvae and adult females were lower in offspring of axenic parents compared to that of non-axenic parents. The percentage of partially emerged adults was higher, and fecundity of adult females was lower in offspring of axenic parents relative to offspring of control and reinoculated parents. There was no significant effect of parental microbiota manipulation on offspring developmental time or lipid reserve. Our results reveal transgenerational effects of the parental commensal microbiota on different aspects of offspring life-history traits, thereby providing a better understanding of the long-lasting effects of host–microbe interactions.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 15-06-2022
DOI: 10.1057/S41599-022-01223-3
Abstract: Academia is far from a meritocratic distribution of opportunities. This leads to inequalities, lack of ersity, and unfairness. The objective of this conceptual paper is to propose an integrative framework to help the academic community address its pervasive but persistent inequalities of opportunities. The framework emerges from the intersections of Bourdieu, Bronfenbrenner, and Rawls frameworks and propose the use of ethical artificial intelligence (AI) to contextualise merit and recreate true equality of opportunities. More specifically, I argue that academia has structures and doxa that may be inaccessible to in iduals from different social origins, and are perpetuated by privileged in iduals who achieve positions of power within academia. The privileged in iduals inherit and are exposed to opportunities to acquire capital from early life, resulting in the continuation of status quo practices and alienation of minorities that do not share—or do not have the ability to acquire—capital. I argue that this process occurs as a result of the social origins of the in idual and, as Bronfenbrennian framework suggests, disadvantaged in iduals lack both the (inherited) capital, but also lack the ability and opportunities to acquire capital relative to privileged counterparts. I argue that the only way to mitigate this inequitable system is to retrieve the Rawlsian original position of ignorance (veil of ignorance) in the allocation of academic capital based on merit, which can only be objectively quantified relative to social origins of in iduals. As opposed to current subjective assessments (e.g., peer-review) or lottery systems, I propose the use of Big Data and ethical AI to reconstruct the position of ignorance and contextualise merit based on the expected merit given in iduals’ social origins. I also discuss the concept of ‘years post-PhD’ as it is used to introduce fairness in allocation of academic capital and propose a different and less relativistic landmark that accounts for the years post-first authorship publication. This is a novel conceptual framework which can stimulate further research into the ecology of social justice.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 06-2022
DOI: 10.1007/S00285-022-01763-X
Abstract: Living organisms are limited in the range of values of ecological factors they can explore. This defines where animals exist (or could exist) and forms an ecological fingerprint that explains species’ distribution at global scales. Species’ ecological fingerprints can be represented as a n-dimensional hypervolume – known as Hutchinson’s niche hypervolume. This concept has enabled significant progress in our understanding of species’ ecological needs and distributions across environmental gradients. Nevertheless, the properties of Hutchinson’s n -dimensional hypervolumes can be challenging to calculate and several methods have been proposed to extract meaningful measurements of hypervolumes’ properties. One key property of hypervolumes are holes, which provide important information about the ecological occupancy of species. However, to date, current methods rely on volume estimates and set operations to identify holes in hypervolumes. Yet, this approach can be problematic because in high-dimensions, the volume of region enclosing a hole tends to zero. We propose the use of persistence homology (PH) to identify holes in hypervolumes and in ecological datasets more generally. PH allows for the estimates of topological properties in n -dimensional niche hypervolumes independent of the volume estimates of the hypervolume. We demonstrate the application of PH to canonical datasets and to the identification of holes in the hypervolumes of five vertebrate species with erse niches, highlighting the potential benefits of this approach to gain further insights into animal ecology. Overall, our approach enables the study of a yet unexplored property of Hutchinson’s hypervolumes, and thus, have important implications to our understanding of animal ecology.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 11-11-2020
DOI: 10.1002/ECE3.6981
Abstract: Herbivorous insects such as butterflies and moths are essential to natural and agricultural systems due to pollination and pest outbreaks. However, our knowledge of butterflies' and moths' nutrition is fragmented and limited to few common, charismatic, or problematic species. This gap precludes our complete understanding of herbivorous insects' natural history, physiological and behavioral adaptations that drive how species interact with their environment, the consequences of habitat fragmentation and climate change to invertebrate bio ersity, and pest outbreak dynamics. Here, we first report a population of the Buff‐tip moth Phalera bucephala (Lepidoptera: Notodontidae) feeding on a previously unknown family of host plants, the mountain currant Ribes alpinum (Saxifragales: Grossulariaceae). This is the first report of a Notodontid moth feeding on Grossulariaceae hosts. Using no‐choice and choice assays, we showed that P. bucephala has strong foraging preferences for a previously unknown hosts, the R. alpinum but also, although to a smaller extent, R. uva‐crispa compared with a previously known host (the Norway maple Acer sp.). These findings demonstrate that P. bucephala feed on—and show strong preference for Grossulariaceae host plants, indicating flexible physiological mechanisms to accommodate hosts plants from various families. This makes this species a potential model organism to study the behavioral and physiological mechanisms underpinning insect–plant interactions and diet breadth evolution. We discuss the broad ecological implications of these observations to the biology of the species, the potential negative effects of interspecific competition with endemic specialist moths, and highlight questions for future research.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 08-2022
DOI: 10.1002/ECE3.9174
Abstract: Animals regulate their nutrient consumption to maximize the expression of fitness traits with competing nutritional needs (“nutritional trade‐offs”). Nutritional trade‐offs have been studied using a response surface modeling approach known as the Geometric Framework for nutrition (GF). Current experimental design in GF studies does not explore the entire area of the nutritional space resulting in performance landscapes that may be incomplete. This h ers our ability to understand the properties of the performance landscape (e.g., peak shape) from which meaningful biological insights can be obtained. Here, I tested alternative experimental designs to explore the full range of the performance landscape in GF studies. I compared the performance of the standard GF design strategy with three alternatives: hexagonal, square, and random points grid strategies with respect to their accuracy in reconstructing baseline performance landscapes from a landmark GF dataset. I showed that standard GF design did not reconstruct the properties of baseline performance landscape appropriately particularly for traits that respond strongly to the interaction between nutrients. Moreover, the peak estimates in the reconstructed performance landscape using standard GF design were accurate in terms of the nutrient ratio but incomplete in terms of peak shape. All other grid designs provided more accurate reconstructions of the baseline performance landscape while also providing accurate estimates of nutrient ratio and peak shape. Thus, alternative experimental designs can maximize information from performance landscapes in GF studies, enabling reliable biological insights into nutritional trade‐offs and physiological limits within and across species.
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 11-05-2016
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 08-05-2023
DOI: 10.1038/S41598-023-34722-7
Abstract: Diet specialists and generalists face a common challenge: they must regulate the intake and balance of nutrients to achieve a target diet for optimum nutrition. When optimum nutrition is unattainable, organisms must cope with dietary imbalances and trade-off surplus and deficits of nutrients that ensue. Animals achieve this through compensatory rules that dictate how to cope with nutrient imbalances, known as ‘rules of compromise’. Understanding the patterns of the rules of compromise can provide invaluable insights into animal physiology and behaviour, and shed light into the evolution of diet specialisation. However, we lack an analytical method for quantitative comparisons of the rules of compromise within and between species. Here, I present a new analytical method that uses Thales’ theorem as foundation, and that enables fast comparisons of the rules of compromise within and between species. I then apply the method on three landmark datasets to show how the method enables us to gain insights into how animals with different diet specialisation cope with nutrient imbalances. The method opens new avenues of research to understand how animals cope with nutrient imbalances in comparative nutrition.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2019
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 22-04-2021
Abstract: Societies have benefited directly and indirectly from ecosystem services provided by insects for centuries (e.g., pollination by bees and waste recycling by beetles). The relationship between people and insect ecosystem services has evolved and influenced how societies perceive and relate to nature and with each other, for ex le, by shaping cultural values (‘cultural ecosystem services’). Thus, better understanding the significance of insect cultural services can change societies’ motivations underpinning conservation efforts. To date, however, we still overlook the significance of many insect cultural services in shaping our societies, which in turn likely contributes to the generalised misconceptions and misrepresentations of insects in the media such as television and the internet. To address this gap, we have reviewed an identified list of insect cultural services that influence our societies on a daily basis, including cultural services related to art, recreation, and the development of traditional belief systems. This list allowed us to formulate a multi-level framework which aims to serve as a compass to guide societies to better appreciate and potentially change the perception of insect cultural services from in idual to global levels. This framework can become an important tool for gaining public support for conservation interventions targeting insects and the services that they provide. More broadly, this framework highlights the importance of considering cultural ecosystems services—for which values can be difficult to quantify in traditional terms—in shaping the relationship between people and nature.
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 23-07-2021
DOI: 10.1101/2021.07.22.453343
Abstract: Ecological conditions shape (adaptive) responses at the molecular, anatomical, and behavioural levels. Understanding these responses is key to predict the outcomes of intra- and inter-specific competitions and the evolutionary trajectory of populations. Recent technological advances have enabled large-scale molecular (e.g., RNAseq) and behavioural (e.g., computer vision) studies, but the study of anatomical responses to ecological conditions has lagged behind. Here, we highlight the role of X-Ray micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) in generating in vivo and ex vivo 3D imaging of anatomical structures, which can enable insights into adaptive anatomical responses to ecological environments. To demonstrate the application of this method, we manipulated the larval density of Drosophila melanogaster flies and applied micro-CT to investigate the anatomical responses of the male reproductive organs to varying intra-specific competition levels during development. Our data is suggestive of two classes of anatomical responses which broadly agree with sexual selection theory: increasing larval density led to testes and ejaculatory duct to be overall larger (in volume), while the volume of accessory glands and, to a lesser extent, ejaculatory duct decreased. These two distinct classes of anatomical responses might reflect shared developmental regulation of the structures of the male reproductive system. Overall, we show that micro-CT can be an important tool to advance the study of anatomical (adaptive) responses to ecological environments.
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 30-11-2021
DOI: 10.1101/2021.11.29.470426
Abstract: Habitat quality early in life determines in idual fitness, with possible long-term evolutionary effects on groups and populations. In holometabolous insects, larval ecology plays a major role in determining the expression of traits in adulthood, but how ecological conditions during larval stage interact to shape adult life-history and fitness, particularly in non-model organisms, remains subject to scrutiny. Consequently, our knowledge of the interactive effects of ecological factors on insect development is limited. Here, using the polyphagous fly Bactrocera tryoni , we conducted a fully-factorial design where we manipulated larval density and larval diet (protein-rich, standard, and sugar-rich) to gain insights into how these ecological factors interact to modulate adult fitness. As expected, a protein-rich diet resulted in faster larval development, heavier and leaner adults that were more fecund compared with standard and sugar-rich diets, irrespective of larval density. Females from the protein-rich larval diet had overall higher reproductive rate (i.e., eggs per day) than females from other diets, and reproductive rate decreased linearly with density for females from the protein-rich but non-linearly for females from the standard and sugar-rich diets over time. Surprisingly, adult lipid reserve increased with larval density for adults from the sugar-rich diet (as opposed to decreasing, as in other diets), possibly due to a stress-response to an extremely adverse condition during development (i.e., high intraspecific competition and poor nutrition). Together, our results provide insights into how ecological factors early in life interact and shape the fate of in iduals through life-stages in holometabolous insects.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 08-06-2016
DOI: 10.1038/SREP27673
Abstract: Male fitness depends on the expression of costly traits involved in obtaining mates (pre-copulatory) and fertilization (post-copulatory). However, very little is known about the nutrient requirements for these traits and whether males compromise their diet to maximize one trait at the expense of another. Here we used Nutritional Geometry to investigate macronutrient requirements for pre- and post-copulatory traits in Drosophila , when males were the first or second to mate with females. We found no significant effects of male diet on sperm competitiveness. However, although males self-regulate their macronutrient intake at a protein-to-carbohydrate ratio (“P:C ratio”) of 1:1.5, this ratio does not coincide with their optima for several key reproductive traits: both the short-term (~24 hr) rate of offspring production after a female’s first mating, as well as the total offspring number sired when males were second to mate were maximized at a P:C ratio of 1:9, whereas male attractiveness (latency to mate), were maximised at a P:C ratio of 1:1. These results suggest a compromised optimum diet, and no single diet that simultaneously maximizes all male reproductive traits. The protein intake of first males also negatively affected female offspring production following remating, suggesting a long-term intersexual effect of male nutrition.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 28-05-2021
DOI: 10.1186/S12052-021-00147-X
Abstract: The technological revolution of past decades has led teaching and learning of evolutionary biology to move away from its naturalist origins. As a result, students’ learning experiences and training on the science of natural history—which entails careful observations and meticulous data curation to generate insight—have been compromised compared with the times of the pioneers in the field. But will technology cause the extinction of natural history in its traditional form? In this essay, we provide a visionary—albeit not yet possible—perspective of the future of natural history in the technological era. We review the main concepts and applications of key state-state-of-the-art technologies to the teaching and learning of Biology including Virtual and Mixed Reality (VMR). Next, we review the current knowledge in artificial life, and describe our visionary model for the future of natural history voyages—the BioVR—which is an immersive world where students can experience evolution in action, and also shape how evolution can occur in virtual worlds. We finish the essay with a cautionary tale as to the known negative sides of using VMR technologies, and why future applications should be designed with care to protect the intended learning outcomes and students’ experience. Our aim is to stimulate debates on how new technologies can revolutionise teaching and learning across scenarios, which can be useful for improving learning outcomes of biological concepts in face-to-face, blended, and distance learning programmes.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 17-10-2022
Abstract: Intraspecific competition at the larval stage is an important ecological factor affecting life‐history, adaptation and evolutionary trajectory in holometabolous insects. However, the molecular pathways underpinning these ecological processes are poorly characterized. We reared Drosophila melanogaster at three egg densities (5, 60, and 300 eggs/mL) and sequenced the transcriptomes of pooled third‐instar larvae. We also examined emergence time, egg‐to‐adult viability, adult mass, and adult sex‐ratio at each density. Medium crowding had minor detrimental effects on adult phenotypes compared to low density and yielded 24 differentially expressed genes (DEGs), including several chitinase enzymes. In contrast, high crowding had substantial detrimental effects on adult phenotypes and yielded 2107 DEGs. Among these, upregulated gene sets were enriched in sugar, steroid and amino acid metabolism as well as DNA replication pathways, whereas downregulated gene sets were enriched in ABC transporters, taurine, Toll/Imd signaling, and P450 xenobiotics metabolism pathways. Overall, our findings show that larval crowding has a large consistent effect on several molecular pathways (i.e., core responses) with few pathways displaying density‐specific regulation (i.e., idiosyncratic responses). This provides important insights into how holometabolous insects respond to intraspecific competition during development.
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 13-03-2019
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2020
DOI: 10.1016/J.JINSPHYS.2019.103969
Abstract: Nutrition is a major mediator of insect life-history trait expression. While the role of macronutrient (carbohydrate and protein) balance on trait expression has received substantial attention, the implications of different classes of specific macronutrients remains virtually unexplored. Here, we addressed this gap by varying the type of carbohydrate in larval diets of the polyphagous fruit fly Bactrocera tryoni (aka 'Queensland fruit fly'). Sourcing insects from a colony maintained using larval diets that contain sucrose, we assessed the effects of sucrose, maltose, and lactose on larval development and adult traits. Replacement of sucrose with lactose resulted in slow larval growth, as well as decreases in pupation, adult emergence and adult body weight for both sexes, although adult lipid reserves were unaffected. Sucrose and maltose were equivalent in terms of larval growth, pupation, adult emergence and adult weight of both sexes. Surprisingly, adults from larvae reared on diets containing maltose had lower lipid reserves than adults from larvae reared on diets containing either lactose or sucrose. The sex ratio of adults at emergence from larvae reared on diets containing lactose and maltose was balanced, but was female-biased in adults from larvae reared on diets containing sucrose. Our results show that carbohydrate sources are not equivalent for development of the Queensland fruit fly, affecting both larval development and adult traits. These findings have implications for understanding the ecology of this highly polyphagous species which infests fruits with highly erse carbohydrate contents, as well as for the rearing and management of this pest species.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 26-04-2019
DOI: 10.1002/ECE3.5206
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 11-2022
DOI: 10.1098/RSOS.221326
Abstract: Nutrition is one of the underlying factors necessary for the expression of life-histories and fitness across the tree of life. In recent decades, the geometric framework (GF) has become a powerful framework to obtain biological insights through the construction of multidimensional performance landscapes. However, to date, many properties of these multidimensional landscapes have remained inaccessible due to our lack of mathematical and statistical frameworks for GF analysis. This has limited our ability to understand, describe and estimate parameters which may contain useful biological information from GF multidimensional performance landscapes. Here, we propose a new model to investigate the curvature of GF multidimensional landscapes by calculating the parameters from differential geometry known as Gaussian and mean curvatures. We also estimate the surface area of multidimensional performance landscapes as a way to measure landscape deviations from flat. We applied the models to a landmark dataset in the field, where we also validate the assumptions required for the calculations of curvature. In particular, we showed that linear models perform as well as other models used in GF data, enabling landscapes to be approximated by quadratic polynomials. We then introduced the Hausdorff distance as a metric to compare the similarity of multidimensional landscapes.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 10-11-2020
DOI: 10.1002/ECE3.7003
Abstract: Model organisms such as Drosophila melanogaster have been key tools for advancing our fundamental and applied knowledge in biological and biomedical sciences. However, model organisms have become intertwined with the idea of controlled and stable laboratory environments, and their natural history has been overlooked. In holometabolous insects, lack of natural history information on larval ecology has precluded major advances in the field of developmental ecology, especially in terms of manipulations of population density early in life (i.e., larval density). This is because of relativistic and to some extent, arbitrary methodologies employed to manipulate larval densities in laboratory studies. As a result, these methodologies render comparisons between species impossible, precluding our understanding of macroevolutionary responses to population densities during development that can be derived from comparative studies. We recently proposed a new conceptual framework to address this issue, and here, we provide the first natural history investigation of Drosophila melanogaster larval density under such framework. First, we characterized the distribution of larval densities in a wild population of D. melanogaster using rotting apples as breeding substrate in a suburban area in Sweden. Next, we compiled the commonly used methodologies for manipulating larval densities in laboratory studies from the literature and found that the majority of laboratory studies identified did not manipulate larval densities below or above the densities observed in nature, suggesting that we have yet to study true life history and physiological responses to low and high population densities during D. melanogaster development. This is, to our knowledge, the first direct natural history account of larval density in nature for this model organism. Our study paves the way for a more integrated view of organismal biology which re‐incorporates natural history of model organisms into hypothesis‐driven research in developmental ecology.
Publisher: Authorea, Inc.
Date: 16-10-2020
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2022
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 25-11-2022
DOI: 10.1101/2021.11.25.469978
Abstract: Animals regulate their diet in order to maximise the expression of fitness traits that often have different nutritional needs. These nutritional trade-offs have been experimentally uncovered using the Geometric framework for nutrition (GF). However, current analytical methods to measure such responses rely on either visual inspection or complex models applied to multidimensional performance landscapes, making these approaches subjective, or conceptually difficult, computationally expensive, and in some cases inaccurate. This limits our ability to understand how animal nutrition evolved to support life-histories within and between species. Here, we introduce a simple trigonometric model to measure nutritional trade-offs in multidimensional landscapes (‘Nutrigonometry’). Nutrigonometry is both conceptually and computationally easier than current approaches, as it harnesses the trigonometric relationships of right-angle triangles instead of vector calculations. Using landmark GF datasets, we first show how polynomial (Bayesian) regressions can be used for precise and accurate predictions of peaks and valleys in performance landscapes, irrespective of the underlying structure of the data (i.e., in idual food intakes vs fixed diet ratios). Using trigonometric relationships, we then identified the known nutritional trade-off between lifespan and reproductive rate both in terms of nutrient balance and concentration. Nutrigonometry enables a fast, reliable and reproducible quantification of nutritional trade-offs in multidimensional performance landscapes, thereby broadening the potential for future developments in comparative research on the evolution of animal nutrition.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 12-2019
DOI: 10.1186/S12866-019-1648-7
Abstract: Commensal microbes can promote survival and growth of developing insects, and have important fitness implications in adulthood. Insect larvae can acquire commensal microbes through two main routes: by vertical acquisition from maternal deposition of microbes on the eggshells and by horizontal acquisition from the environment where the larvae develop. To date, however, little is known about how microbes acquired through these different routes interact to shape insect development. In the present study, we investigated how vertically and horizontally acquired microbiota influence larval foraging behaviour, development time to pupation and pupal production in the Queensland fruit fly (‘Qfly’), Bactrocera tryoni . Both vertically and horizontally acquired microbiota were required to maximise pupal production in Qfly. Moreover, larvae exposed to both vertically and horizontally acquired microbiota pupated sooner than those exposed to no microbiota, or only to horizontally acquired microbiota. Larval foraging behaviour was also influenced by both vertically and horizontally acquired microbiota. Larvae from treatments exposed to neither vertically nor horizontally acquired microbiota spent more time overall on foraging patches than did larvae of other treatments, and most notably had greater preference for diets with extreme protein or sugar compositions. The integrity of the microbiota early in life is important for larval foraging behaviour, development time to pupation, and pupal production in Qflies. These findings highlight the complexity of microbial relations in this species, and provide insights to the importance of exposure to microbial communities during laboratory- or mass-rearing of tephritid fruit flies.
Publisher: Authorea, Inc.
Date: 15-10-2020
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 25-11-2021
DOI: 10.1101/2021.11.25.470005
Abstract: Natural history information is essential for ecologically-relevant inferences about (adaptive) responses in organismal biology. Yet, natural history data can be difficult to obtain, particularly for the developmental stages of holometabolous insects. This gap can compromise our ability to design controlled experiments that provide useful understanding of insect responses to changing environments and precludes our ability to understand how natural populations may respond to unpredictable climatic changes in their natural environment. In this study, we collated data from previous reports from the Butterfly Conservation Upper Thames Branch on the larval population density of Shargacucullia lychnis (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) in Buckinghamshire. In the UK, S. lychnis is a protected species, for which natural history information can be invaluable for its effective conservation. We report here that the natural range of larval densities observed for S. lychnis across locations and years is 0.001 to 6.417 larvae per spike. More importantly, S. lychnis larval density has overall declined from 1996 to 2020, which could support previous reports of a contraction in population range for this species. Overall, this study provides invaluable information about larval population density for an important protected Lepidopteran species of the UK.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Date: 06-2019
DOI: 10.1086/701898
Abstract: Animals make feeding decisions to simultaneously maximize fitness traits that often require different nutrients. Recent quantitative methods have been developed to characterize these nutritional trade-offs from performance landscapes on which traits are mapped on a nutrient space defined by two nutrients. This limitation constrains the broad applications of previous methods to more complex data, and a generalized framework is needed. Here, we build on previous methods and introduce a generalized vector-based approach-the vector of position approach-to study nutritional trade-offs in complex multidimensional spaces. The vector of position approach allows the estimate of performance variations across entire landscapes (peaks and valleys) and comparison of these variations between animals. Using landmark published data sets on life span and reproduction landscapes, we illustrate how our approach gives accurate quantifications of nutritional trade-offs in two- and three-dimensional spaces and can bring new insights into the underlying nutritional differences in trait expression between species. The vector of position approach provides a generalized framework for investigating nutritional differences in life-history trait expression within and between species, an essential step for the development of comparative research on the evolution of animal nutritional strategies.
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 09-04-2020
Abstract: Achieving a better understanding of the consequences of nutrition to animal fitness and human health is a major challenge of our century. Nutritional ecology studies increasingly use nutritional landscapes to map the complex interacting effects of nutrient intake on animal performances, in a wide range of species and ecological contexts. Here, we argue that opening access to these hard-to-obtain, yet considerably insightful, data is fundamental to develop a comparative framework for nutrition research and offer new quantitative means to address open questions about the ecology and evolution of nutritional processes.
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 17-12-2021
DOI: 10.1101/2021.12.16.473033
Abstract: Nutrition is a central factor influencing immunity and resistance to infection, but the extent to which nutrition during development affects adult responses to infections is poorly understood. Our study investigated how the nutritional composition of the larval diet affects the survival, pathogen load, and food intake of adult fruit flies, Bactrocera tryoni , after bacterial septic infection. We found a sex-specific effect of larval diet composition on survival post-infection: survival rate was higher and bacterial load was lower for infected females fed sugar-rich larval diet compared with females fed protein-rich larval diet, an effect that was absent in males. Both males and females were heavier when fed a balanced larval diet compared to protein- or sugar-rich diet, while body lipid reserves were higher in the sugar-rich larval diet compared with other diets. Body protein reserve was lower for sugar-rich larval diets compared to other diets in males, but not females. Both females and males shifted their nutrient intake to ingest a sugar-rich diet when infected compared with sham-infected flies without any effect of the larval diet, suggesting that sugar-rich diets can be beneficial to fight off bacterial infection. Overall, our findings show that nutrition during early life can shape in idual fitness in adulthood. Developmental conditions influence adulthood. Here we showed that when the larval diet is rich in sugar, resistance to infection is increased in females at adulthood, in a polyphagous fly.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 14-03-2023
DOI: 10.1007/S13744-023-01031-7
Abstract: Emerging evidence suggests that insect populations may be declining at local and global scales, threatening the sustainability of the ecosystem services that insects provide. Insect declines are of particular concern in the Neotropics, which holds several of the world’s hotspots of insect endemism and ersity. Conservation policies are one way to prevent and mitigate insect declines, yet these policies are usually biased toward vertebrate species. Here, we outline some key policy instruments for bio ersity conservation in the Neotropics and discuss their potential contribution and shortcomings for insect bio ersity conservation. These include species-specific action policies, protected areas and Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas (ICCAs), sectoral policies, bio ersity offsetting, market-based mechanisms, and the international policy instruments that underpin these efforts. We highlight that although these policies can potentially benefit insect bio ersity indirectly, there are avenues in which we could better incorporate the specific needs of insects into policy to mitigate the declines mentioned above. We propose several areas of improvement. Firstly, evaluating the extinction risk of more Neotropical insects to better target at-risk species with species-specific policies and conserve their habitats within area-based interventions. Secondly, alternative pest control methods and enhanced monitoring of insects in a range of land-based production sectors. Thirdly, incorporating measurable and achievable insect conservation targets into international policies and conventions. Finally, we emphasise the important roles of community engagement and enhanced public awareness in achieving these improvements to insect conservation policies.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 11-10-2019
DOI: 10.1111/ICAD.12388
Abstract: Diet specialisation drives life‐history adaptations and is an important factor determining the geographic distribution of species. Previous empirical studies have shown that diet specialists should compose the majority of species in a given location, and theory predicts that generalists should have higher geographic distribution range compared with specialists (the niche breadth‐range size hypothesis). Although the evidence in support of these predictions remain scarce for herbivorous insects from isolated regions of the world such as Sydney on the east coast of Australia. Here, I compiled data from a public database to test these predictions. By measuring the diet breadth and geographic distribution of Sydney butterflies, I showed that species‐, genus‐ and family‐level diet breadth agree with worldwide patterns for Lepidoptera, whereby diet breadth is composed largely of specialist species with a long tail of generalists. Furthermore, species‐ and genus‐ (but not family‐)level diet breadths were positively correlated with geographic distribution, providing supporting evidence for the niche breadth‐range size hypothesis. A machine‐learning algorithm revealed that the positive relationship between diet breadth and geographic distribution was likely to be influenced by a common evolutionary history amongst species. The findings of this study in Sydney butterflies provide support for an important yet debated ecological hypothesis, thereby contributing to our understanding of ecological and nutritional factors driving butterfly species distribution.
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 27-10-2019
DOI: 10.20944/PREPRINTS201910.0311.V1
Abstract: Technological advances made Virtual and Mixed Reality (VMR) accessible at our fingertips. However, only recently VMR has been explored for the teaching of biology. Here, we highlight how VMR applications can be useful in biology education, discuss about caveats related to VMR use that can interfere with learning, and look into the future of VMR applications in the field. We then propose that the combination of VMR with Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence can provide unprecedented ways to visualise how species evolve in self-sustained immersive virtual worlds, thereby transforming VMR from an educational tool to the centre of biological interest.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 18-02-2019
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 25-01-2022
DOI: 10.1101/2022.01.21.477279
Abstract: Hutchinson’s niche hypervolume concept has enabled significant progress in our understanding of species’ ecological needs and distributions across environmental gradients. Nevertheless, the properties of Hutchinson’s n -dimensional hypervolumes can be challenging to calculate and several methods have been proposed to extract meaningful measurements of hypervolumes’ properties (e.g., volume). One key property of hypervolumes are holes, which provide important information about the ecological occupancy of species. However, to date, current methods rely on volume estimates and set operations to identify holes in hypervolumes. Yet, this approach can be problematic because in high-dimensions, the volume of region enclosing a hole tends to zero. Here, we propose the use of the topological concept of persistence homology (PH) to identify holes in hypervolumes and in ecological datasets more generally. PH allows for the estimates of topological properties in n -dimensional niche hyper-volumes and is independent of the volume estimates of the hypervolume. We demonstrate the application of PH to canonical datasets and to the identification of holes in the hypervolumes of five vertebrate species with erse niches, highlighting the potential benefits of this approach to gain further insights into animal ecology. Overall, our approach enables the study of an yet unexplored property of Hutchinson’s hypervolumes (i.e., holes), and thus, have important implications to our understanding of animal ecology.
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 04-2019
DOI: 10.1098/RSOS.190090
Abstract: In holometabolous insects, larval nutrition is a key factor underpinning development and fitness. Heterogeneity in the nutritional environment and larval competition can force larvae to forage in suboptimal diets, with potential downstream fitness effects. Little is known about how larvae respond to competitive heterogeneous environments, and whether variation in these responses affects current and next generations. Here, we designed nutritionally heterogeneous foraging arenas by modifying nutrient concentration, where groups of the polyphagous fruit fly Bactrocera tryoni could forage freely at various levels of larval competition. Larval foraging preferences were highly consistent and independent of larval competition, with greatest foraging propensity for high (100%) followed by intermediate (80% and 60%) nutrient concentration diets, and avoidance of lower concentration diets (less than 60%). We then used these larval preferences (i.e. 100%, 80% and 60% diets) in fitness assays in which larvae competition was maintained constant, and showed that nutrient concentrations selected by the larvae in the foraging trials had no effect on fitness-related traits such as egg hatching and pupation success, adult flight ability, sex ratio, percentage of emergence, nor on adult cold tolerance, fecundity and next-generation pupal weight. These results support the idea that polyphagous species can exploit erse hosts and nutritional conditions with minimal fitness costs to thrive in new environments.
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 16-07-2019
DOI: 10.20944/PREPRINTS201907.0190.V1
Abstract: Gut bacteria play a key role in insect fitness, but the changes in gut microbiome profile across developmental stages of holometabolous insects remains little explored. Understanding changes in the microbiome across life stages is an important step toward understanding the associated shifts in functional relationships and trade-offs. Here, we characterised the microbiome of larvae, pupae, and adults of the highly polyphagous fruit fly Bactrocera tryoni (Froggatt) (Diptera: Tephritidae) using next-generation sequencing. We s led in iduals from colonies that had been recently introduced to the laboratory environment from naturally infested fruits at generations one (& lsquo G1& rsquo ) and five (& lsquo G5& rsquo ). Alpha ersity increased across developmental stages at both G1 and G5, with maximum ersity in adults. Community composition changed across developmental stages and between generations. In G1, larval and pupal microbiomes were dominated by the genus Asaia whereas adult microbiomes were dominated by Enterobacter. In G5, larval and pupal microbiomes contained a high relative abundance of Asaia, but pupae also had a high relative abundance of Staphylococcus and Burkholderia, and there were no dominant patterns in adults. Our findings provide insights into the developmental stage-dependent microbiome associations of a polyphagous fly, and how host-symbiont interactions change at each life stage through the transition from nature to laboratory environments.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 03-10-2018
DOI: 10.1038/S41598-018-32930-0
Abstract: The majority of insect species have a clearly defined larval stage during development. Larval nutrition is crucial for in iduals’ growth and development, and larval foraging success often depends on both resource availability and competition for those resources. To date, however, little is known about how these factors interact to shape larval development and behaviour. Here we manipulated the density of larvae of the polyphagous fruit fly pest Bactrocera tryoni (‘Queensland fruit fly’), and the diet concentration of patches in a foraging arena to address this gap. Using advanced statistical methods of machine learning and linear regression models, we showed that high larval density results in overall high larval aggregation across all diets except in extreme diet dilutions. Larval aggregation was positively associated with larval body mass across all diet concentrations except in extreme diet dilutions where this relationship was reversed. Over time, larvae in low-density arenas also tended to aggregate while those in high-density arenas tended to disperse, an effect that was observed for all diet concentrations. Furthermore, larvae in high-density arenas displayed significant avoidance of low concentration diets – a behaviour that was not observed amongst larvae in low-density arenas. Thus, aggregation can help, rather than hinder, larval growth in high-density environments, and larvae may be better able to explore available nutrition when at high-density than when at low-density.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 05-07-2022
DOI: 10.1007/S13744-022-00976-5
Abstract: Ecological conditions shape (adaptive) responses at the molecular, anatomical, and behavioral levels. Understanding these responses is key to predict the outcomes of intra- and inter-specific competitions and the evolutionary trajectory of populations. Recent technological advances have enabled large-scale molecular (e.g., RNAseq) and behavioral (e.g., computer vision) studies, but the study of anatomical responses to ecological conditions has lagged behind. Here, we highlight the role of X-ray micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) in generating in vivo and ex vivo 3D imaging of anatomical structures, which can enable insights into adaptive anatomical responses to ecological environments. To demonstrate the application of this method, we manipulated the larval density of Drosophila melanogaster Meigen flies and applied micro-CT to investigate the anatomical responses of the male reproductive organs to varying intraspecific competition levels during development. Our data is suggestive of two classes of anatomical responses which broadly agree with sexual selection theory: increasing larval density led to testes and ejaculatory duct to be overall larger (in volume), while the volume of accessory glands and, to a lesser extent, ejaculatory duct decreased. These two distinct classes of anatomical responses might reflect shared developmental regulation of the structures of the male reproductive system. Overall, we show that micro-CT can be an important tool to advance the study of anatomical (adaptive) responses to ecological environments.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 21-06-2023
DOI: 10.1111/JEB.14191
Abstract: In many species, the order in which males mate with a female explains much of the variation in paternity arising from post‐copulatory sexual selection. Research in Drosophila suggests that mating order may account for the majority of the variance in male reproductive success. However, the effects of mating order on paternity bias might not be static but could potentially vary with social or environmental factors. To test this idea, we used an existing dataset, collated from an experiment we previously published (Morimoto et al., PLoS One , 11 , 2016, e0154468), with the addition of unpublished data from the same experiment. These previous experiments manipulated larval density in Drosophila melanogaster which generated variation in male and female body size, assembled groups of in iduals of different sizes, and measured the mating success and paternity share of focal males. The data presented here provides information on each focal male's mating order and the frequency in which focal males remated with same females (‘repetitive matings’). We combined this information with our previously reported focal male reproductive success to partition variance in paternity into male mating order and repetitive matings across groups that differed in the body size composition of males and females. We found, as expected, that male mating order explained a considerable portion of the variance in male paternity. However, we also found that the impact of male mating order on male paternity was influenced by the body size composition of groups. Specifically, males that tended to mate last had a greater paternity advantage, and displayed lower variance, in groups containing a heterogenous mixture male body sizes than in groups with a single male body size. Repetitive mating only had a minor contribution to the variance in male paternity share across all experiments. Overall, our findings contribute to the growing body of research showing that post‐copulatory sexual selection is subject to socio‐ecological influences.
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 04-10-2021
DOI: 10.1093/CZ/ZOAB081
Abstract: Parents adjust their reproductive investment over their lifespan based on their condition, age, and social environment, creating the potential for inter-generational effects to differentially affect offspring physiology. To date, however, little is known about how social environments experienced by parents throughout development and adulthood influence the effect of parental age on the expression of life-history traits in the offspring. Here, I collected data on Drosophila melanogaster offspring traits (i.e., body weight, water content, and lipid reserves) from populations where either mothers, fathers both, or neither parents experienced different social environments during development (larval crowding) and adulthood. Parental treatment modulated parental age effects on offspring lipid reserves but did not influence parental age effects on offspring water content. Importantly, parents in social environments where all in iduals were raised in uncrowded larval densities produced daughters and sons lighter than parental treatments which produced the heaviest offspring. The peak in offspring body weight was delayed relative to the peak in parental reproductive success, but more strongly so for daughters from parental treatments where some or all males in the parental social environments were raised in crowded larval densities (irrespective of their social context), suggesting a potential father-to-daughter effect. Overall, the findings of this study reveal that parental ecological history (here, developmental and adult social environments) can modulate the effects of parental age at reproduction on the expression of offspring traits.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 09-12-2019
Publisher: The Company of Biologists
Date: 15-08-2022
DOI: 10.1242/JEB.243910
Abstract: Nutrition is a central factor influencing immunity and resistance to infection, but the extent to which nutrition during development affects adult responses to infections is poorly understood. Our study investigated how the nutritional composition of the larval diet affects the survival, pathogen load and food intake of adult fruit flies, Bactrocera tryoni, after septic bacterial infection. We found a sex-specific effect of larval diet composition on survival post-infection: survival rate was higher and bacterial load was lower for infected females raised on a sugar-rich larval diet than for females raised on a protein-rich larval diet, an effect that was absent in males. Both males and females were heavier when fed a balanced larval diet compared with a protein- or sugar-rich diet, while body lipid reserves were higher for those that had consumed the sugar-rich larval diet compared with other diets. Body protein reserves were lower for flies that had been raised on the sugar-rich larval diet compared with other diets in males, but not females. Both females and males shifted their nutrient intake to ingest a sugar-rich diet when infected compared with sham-infected flies without any effect of the larval diet, suggesting that sugar-rich diets can be beneficial to fight off bacterial infection as shown in previous literature. Overall, our findings show that nutrition during early life can shape in idual fitness in adulthood.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2017
DOI: 10.1016/J.CUB.2017.07.022
Abstract: The gut microbiota affects a wide spectrum of host physiological traits, including development [1-5], germline [6], immunity [7-9], nutrition [4, 10, 11], and longevity [12, 13]. Association with microbes also influences fitness-related behaviors such as mating [14] and social interactions [15, 16]. Although the gut microbiota is evidently important for host wellbeing, how hosts become associated with particular assemblages of microbes from the environment remains unclear. Here, we present evidence that the gut microbiota can modify microbial and nutritional preferences of Drosophila melanogaster. By experimentally manipulating the gut microbiota of flies subjected to behavioral and chemosensory assays, we found that fly-microbe attractions are shaped by the identity of the host microbiota. Conventional flies exhibit preference for their associated Lactobacillus, a behavior also present in axenic flies as adults and marginally as larvae. By contrast, fly preference for Acetobacter is primed by early-life exposure and can override the innate preference. These microbial preferences are largely olfactory guided and have profound impact on host foraging, as flies continuously trade off between acquiring beneficial microbes and balancing nutrients from food. Our study shows a role of animal microbiota in shaping host fitness-related behavior through their chemosensory responses, opening a research theme on the interrelationships between the microbiota, host sensory perception, and behavior.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 02-09-2020
DOI: 10.1007/S10682-020-10073-X
Abstract: Population density modulates a wide range of eco-evolutionary processes including inter- and intra-specific competition, fitness and population dynamics. In holometabolous insects, the larval stage is particularly susceptible to density-dependent effects because the larva is the resource-acquiring stage. Larval density-dependent effects can modulate the expression of life-history traits not only in the larval and adult stages but also downstream for population dynamics and evolution. Better understanding the scope and generality of density-dependent effects on life-history traits of current and future generations can provide useful knowledge for both theory and experiments in developmental ecology. Here, we review the literature on larval density-dependent effects on fitness of non-social holometabolous insects. First, we provide a functional definition of density to navigate the terminology in the literature. We then classify the biological levels upon which larval density-dependent effects can be observed followed by a review of the literature produced over the past decades across major non-social holometabolous groups. Next, we argue that host-microbe interactions are yet an overlooked biological level susceptible to density-dependent effects and propose a conceptual model to explain how density-dependent effects on host-microbe interactions can modulate density-dependent fitness curves. In summary, this review provides an integrative framework of density-dependent effects across biological levels which can be used to guide future research in the field of ecology and evolution.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 26-06-2020
DOI: 10.1002/PAN3.10115
Abstract: Ecosystem services are essential for the health of current and future generations and key to the sustainable development of our societies. The role of insects in providing ecosystem services has been increasingly recognized, becoming the focus of several management and conservation initiatives world‐wide. However, ecosystem services framework traditionally overlooks the full range of services that can be provided by insects, largely because services provided by life stages other than the insect adult are often neglected. In this paper, I first review the traditional ecosystem services primarily attributed to insects, namely edible insects and mass‐rearing for biological control. Next, I provide a collection of unconventional ecosystem services provided by insect larvae which highlights the importance of considering life stage‐specific services in a holistic view of the ecosystem services framework. In particular, I discuss recent advances that revealed how insect larvae can degrade plastic, which is one of humanity's greatest environmental pollutants, and how larvae can be used to produce biofuel to help overcome the increasing contribution of the fossil fuel industry to climate change. I then discuss how toxic compounds produced by the larvae of some insects provide potential new medicines for clinical treatment and lastly, I discuss a unique ex le of how the larval stage of insects is entrenched into the cultural values of Aboriginal communities in Australia. In conclusion, by acknowledging life stage‐specific ecosystem services provided by insects, this paper raises awareness of unconventional services that can underpin innovative solutions to contemporary global challenges, which can ultimately help create more sustainable and culturally erse societies.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2019
DOI: 10.1016/J.JTBI.2019.02.002
Abstract: Finding resources is crucial for animals to survive and reproduce, but the understanding of the decision-making underlying foraging decisions to explore new resources and exploit old resources remains lacking. Theory predicts an 'exploration-exploitation trade-off' where animals must balance their effort into either stay and exploit a seemingly good resource or move and explore the environment. To date, however, it has been challenging to generate flexible yet tractable statistical models that can capture this trade-off, and our understanding of foraging decisions is limited. Here, I suggest that foraging decisions can be seen as multi-armed bandit problems, and apply deterministic (i.e., the Upper-Confidence-Bound or 'UCB') and Bayesian algorithms (i.e., Thompson S ling or 'TS') to demonstrate how these algorithms generate testable a priori predictions from simulated data. Next, I use UCB and TS to analyse empirical foraging data from the tephritid fruit fly larvae Bactrocera tryoni to provide a qualitative and quantitative framework to quantify animal foraging behaviour. Qualitative analysis revealed that TS display shorter exploration period than UCB, although both converged to similar qualitative results. Quantitative analysis demonstrated that, overall, UCB is more accurate in predicting the observed foraging patterns compared with TS, even though both algorithms failed to quantitatively estimate the empirical foraging patterns in high-density groups (i.e., groups with 50 larvae and, more strikingly, groups with 100 larvae), likely due to the influence of intraspecific competition on animal behaviour. The framework proposed here demonstrates how reinforcement learning algorithms can be used to model animal foraging decisions.
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
No related grants have been discovered for Juliano Morimoto.