2004 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Discrimination mechanism of nest- and non-nestmates in the colonies of eusocial insents
| Project/Area Number |
14209013
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
広領域
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| Research Institution | Tamagawa University |
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Principal Investigator |
SASAKI Masami Tamagawa University, Faculty of Agriculture, Professor, 農学部, 教授 (40096061)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
YAMAOKA Ryohei Kyoto Institute of Technology, Faculty of Texitile Science, Professor, 繊維学部, 教授 (00111948)
IWASAKI Masayuki Fukuoka University, Faculty of Science, 理学部, 助手 (60151726)
HARA Kenji Tokyo Gakugei University, Faculty of Education, 教育学部, 助教授 (80293968)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2002 – 2004
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| Keywords | Camponotus ant / Apis mellifera / nestmate recognition / cuticular hydrocarbon / contact chemoreceptor / brain neural system / learning and memory / social parasitism |
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| Research Abstract |
Nestmate discrimination is one of the key function of the colony life in social insects.
1)Learning ability of workers to discriminate their queen in the newly-emerged carpenter ant, Camponotus japonicus, depends on the individuals. Discriminative ability was found to coincide with the completion of cell proliferation in the brain. In relation to this brain maturation, postembryonic development of the mushroom bodies was analyzed in detail.
2)For Camponotus japonicus, cuticular hydrocarbon (CHC) blends produced by non-nestmates elicit strong aggression. The specific sensillum on the antennae was identified to respond only to non-nestmates CHC blends, This sensillum seemed to play a key role for a peripheral recognition mechanism in detecting colony-specific chemical signals.
3)In honeybees, recognition cues seem to be much wider. To investigate the process of template renewal probably in the brain, workers showing the nestmate discrimination ability were exposed to unfamiliar colony environments by keeping with non-nestmates for a while. They changed their template rapidly by referring to the inner-colony environment but retain the old template temporally in the early phase of the template renewal. Role of environment-originated odors temporally adsorbed onto the cuticular wax and the fatty acids were also analyzed in detail.
4)Social parasitism seen in the hornets, Vespa dybowskii and V.simillima, was investigated from the point of view of nestmate recognition.
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