Exposure to Conspecific and Heterospecific Sex-Pheromones Modulates Gustatory Habituation in the Moth Agrotis ipsilon

作者：Camille Hostachy, Philippe Couzi, Guillaume Portemer, Mélissa Hanafi‐Portier, Meena Sriti Murmu, Nina Deisig, Matthieu Dacher · 发表于：Frontiers in Physiology · 年份：2019 · DOI：10.3389/fphys.2019.01518 · 被引用次数：14 · 研究领域：Insect Pheromone Research and Control、Insect and Arachnid Ecology and Behavior、Insect and Pesticide Research

In several insects sex-pheromones are essential for reproduction and reproductive isolation. Pheromones generally elicit stereotyped behaviors. In moths, these are attraction to conspecific sex-pheromone sources and deterrence for heterospecific sex-pheromone. Contrasting with these innate behaviors, some results in social insects point towards effects of non-sex-pheromones on perception and learning. We report the effects of sex-pheromone pre-exposure on gustatory perception and habituation (a non-associative learning) in male Agrotis ipsilon moths, a non-social insect. We also studied the effect of Z5-decenyl acetate (Z5), a compound of the sex-pheromone of the related species Agrotis segetum. We hypothesized that conspecific sex-pheromone and Z5 would have opposite effects. Pre-exposure to either the conspecific sex-pheromone or Z5 lasted 15 minutes and was done either immediately or 24 hours before the experiments, using their solvent alone (hexane) as control. In a sucrose responsiveness assay, pre-exposure to the conspecific sex-pheromone had no effect on the dose-response curve at either delays. By contrast, Z5 slightly improved sucrose responsiveness 15 minutes but not 24 hours after pre-exposure. Interestingly, the conspecific sex-pheromone and Z5 had time-dependent effects on gustatory habituation: pre-exposing the moths with Z5 hindered learning after immediate but not 24-hour pre-exposure, whereas pre-exposure to the conspecific sex-pheromone hindered learning at ...