In animal societies, chemical communication plays an important role in conflict and cooperation. For ants, cuticular hydrocarbon (CHC) blends produced by non-nestmates elicit overt aggression. We describe a sensory sensillum on the antennae of the carpenter ant Camponotus japonicus that functions in nestmate discrimination. This sensillum is multiporous and responds only to non-nestmate CHC blends. This suggests a role for a peripheral recognition mechanism in detecting colony-specific chemical signals.
We identified cis-jasmone as a potent attractant in mulberry leaves for silkworms and provide evidence that a highly tuned receptor, BmOr-56, may mediate this behavioral attraction. The current study sheds light on the mechanism of the correlation between olfactory perception in folivore insects and chemotaxis behavior to a natural volatile emitted by green leaves.
Here we report direct evidence that cuticular hydrocarbons are responsible for nestmate recognition in Formica japonica distributing in Southern Honshu in Japan. Workers showed aggressive behavior against foreign workers but not against nestmates. A similar response was observed when a glass dummy was treated with isolated hydrocarbons from foreign workers or nestmates. Among the isolated hydrocarbons, ten hydrocarbon components were identified: five nalkanes and five (Z)-9-alkenes with odd number of carbons from 25 to 33, in different ratios in different colonies. When synthetic hydrocarbons blended in the same ratio as natural blends were presented to workers, they showed aggressive responses against foreign blends but paid less attention to those of nestmates. Neither n-alkane nor (Z)-9-alkene blends, however, caused aggression response in foreign workers. Thus, both n-alkanes and (Z)-9-alkenes are necessary to discriminate nestmates from foreign conspecifics.
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