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Communication amongst eusocial insect is key to their success. Ants rely on signaling to mediate many different functions within a colony such as policing and nest mate recognition. Camponotus floridanus uses chemosensory signaling in the form of cuticular hydrocarbons to regulate these functions. Each cuticular hydrocarbon profile contains numerous hydrocarbons,

Communication amongst eusocial insect is key to their success. Ants rely on signaling to mediate many different functions within a colony such as policing and nest mate recognition. Camponotus floridanus uses chemosensory signaling in the form of cuticular hydrocarbons to regulate these functions. Each cuticular hydrocarbon profile contains numerous hydrocarbons, however it is yet to be seen if Camponotus floridanus can discriminate between linear hydrocarbons of similar length. Individual specimens were conditioned in three different ways: 5 conditioning with high concentration of sugar water (1;1 ratio), 1 conditioning with high concentration of sugar water, and 5 conditioning with low concentration of sugar water (1;4). Two linear hydrocarbons were use, C23 and C24, with C23 always being the conditioned stimulus. Specimens who were conditioned 5 times with high concentration of sugar water were the only group to show a significant response to the conditioned stimulus with a p-value of .008 and exhibited discrimination behavior 46% of the time. When compared 5 conditioning with high concentration to the other two testing conditioning groups, 1 conditioning with high concentration produced an insignificant p-value of .13 was obtained whereas when comparing it with 5 conditioning low concentration of sugar a significant p-value of .0132 was obtained. This indiciates that Camponotus floridanus are capable of discrimination however must be conditioned with high concentration of sugar water, while number of conditioning is insignificant.
ContributorsDamari, Ben Aviv (Author) / Liebig, Juergen (Thesis director) / Ghaninia, Majid (Committee member) / Pratt, Stephen (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor)
Created2014-05
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ABSTRACT Communication is vital in the context of everyday life for all organisms, but particularly so in social insects, such as Z. nevadensis. The overall lifestyle and need for altruistic acts of individuals within a colony depends primarily on intracolony chemical communication, with a focus on odorants. The perception of

ABSTRACT Communication is vital in the context of everyday life for all organisms, but particularly so in social insects, such as Z. nevadensis. The overall lifestyle and need for altruistic acts of individuals within a colony depends primarily on intracolony chemical communication, with a focus on odorants. The perception of these odorants is made possible by the chemoreceptive functions of sensilla basiconica and sensilla trichoid which exist on the antennal structure. The present study consists of both a morphological analysis and electrophysiological experiment concerning sensilla basiconica. It attempts to characterize the function of neurons present in sensilla basiconica through single sensillum recordings and contributes to existing literature by determining if a social insect, such as the dampwood termite, is able to perceive a wide spectrum of odorants despite having significantly fewer olfactory receptors than most other social insect species. Results indicated that sensilla basiconica presence significantly out-paced that of sensilla trichoid and sensilla chaetica combined, on all flagellomeres. Analysis demonstrated significant responses to all general odorants and several cuticular hydrocarbons. Combined with the knowledge of fewer olfactory receptors present in this species and their lifestyle, results may indicate a positive association between the the social complexity of an insect's lifestyle and the number of ORs the individuals within that colony possess.
ContributorsMcGlone, Taylor (Author) / Liebig, Juergen (Thesis director) / Ghaninia, Majid (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2015-05
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Olfactory discrimination tasks can provide useful information about how olfaction may have evolved by demonstrating which types of compounds animals will detect and respond to. Ants discriminate between nestmates and non-nestmates by using olfaction to detect the cuticular hydrocarbons on other ants, and Camponotus floridanus have particularly clear and aggressive

Olfactory discrimination tasks can provide useful information about how olfaction may have evolved by demonstrating which types of compounds animals will detect and respond to. Ants discriminate between nestmates and non-nestmates by using olfaction to detect the cuticular hydrocarbons on other ants, and Camponotus floridanus have particularly clear and aggressive responses to non-nestmates. A new method of adding hydrocarbons to ants, the “Snow Globe” method was further optimized and tested on C. floridanus. It involves adding hydrocarbons and a solvent to a vial of water, vortexing it, suspending hydrocarbon droplets throughout the solution, and then dipping a narcotized ant in. It is hoped this method can evenly coat ants in hydrocarbon. Ants were treated with heptacosane (C27), nonacosane (C29), hentriacontane (C31), a mixture of C27/C29/C31, 2-methyltriacontane (2MeC30), S-3-methylhentriacontane (SMeC31), and R-3-methylhentriacontane (RMeC31). These were chosen to see how ants reacted in a nestmate recognition context to methyl-branched hydrocarbons, R and S enantiomers, and to multiple added alkanes. Behavior assays were performed on treated ants, as well as two untreated controls, a foreign ant and a nestmate ant. There were 15 replicates of each condition, using 15 different queenright colonies. The Snow Globe method successfully transfers hydrocarbons, as confirmed by solid phase microextraction (SPME) done on treated ants, and the behavior assay data shows the foreign control, SMeC31, and the mixture of C27/29/31 were all statistically significant in their differences from the native control. The multiple alkane mixture received a significant response while single alkanes did not, which supports the idea that larger variations in hydrocarbon profile are needed for an ant to be perceived as foreign. The response to SMeC31 shows C. floridanus can respond during nestmate recognition to hydrocarbons that are not naturally occurring, and it indicates the nestmate recognition process may simply be responding to any compounds not found in the colony profile and rather than detecting particular foreign compounds.

ContributorsNoss, Serena Marie (Author) / Liebig, Juergen (Thesis director) / Pratt, Stephen (Committee member) / Haight, Kevin (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
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This project was completed to understand the evolution of the ability to digest wood in termite symbiotic protists. Lower termites harbor bacterial and protist symbionts which are essential to the termite ability to use wood as a nutritional source, producing glycoside hydrolases to break down the polysaccharides found in lignocellulose.

This project was completed to understand the evolution of the ability to digest wood in termite symbiotic protists. Lower termites harbor bacterial and protist symbionts which are essential to the termite ability to use wood as a nutritional source, producing glycoside hydrolases to break down the polysaccharides found in lignocellulose. Yet, only a few molecular studies have been done to confirm the protist species responsible for particular enzymes. By mining publicly available and newly generated genomic and transcriptomic data, including three transcriptomes from isolated protist cells, I identify over 200 new glycoside hydrolase sequences and compute the phylogenies of eight glycoside hydrolase families (GHFs) reported to be expressed by termite hindgut protists.

Of those families examined, the results are broadly consistent with Todaka et al. 2010, though none of the GHFs found were expressed in both termite-associated protist and non-termite-associated protist transcriptome data. This suggests that, rather than being inherited from their free-living protist ancestors, GHF genes were acquired by termite protists while within the termite gut, potentially via lateral gene transfer (LGT). For example one family, GHF10, implies a single acquisition of a bacterial xylanase into termite protists. The phylogenies from GHF5 and GHF11 each imply two distinct acquisitions in termite protist ancestors, each from bacteria. In eukaryote-dominated GHFs, GHF7 and GHF45, there are three apparent acquisitions by termite protists. Meanwhile, it appears prior reports of GHF62 in the termite gut may have been misidentified GHF43 sequences. GHF43 was the only GHF found to contain sequences from the protists not found in the termite gut. These findings generally all support the possibility termite-associated protists adapted to a lignocellulosic diet after colonization of the termite hindgut. Nonetheless, the poor resolution of GHF phylogeny and limited termite and protist sampling constrain interpretation.
ContributorsSanderlin, Viola (Author) / Gile, Gillian H (Thesis advisor) / Wojciechowski, Martin (Committee member) / Weiss, Taylor (Committee member) / Varman, Arul Mozhy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019