Natural odors are often complex mixtures of different compounds. These mixtures can be perceived to have qualities that are different from their components. Moreover, components can be difficult to distinguish within a blend, even if those components are identifiable when presented individually. Thus, odor components can interact along the olfactory pathway in a nonlinear fashion such that the mixture is not perceived simply as the sum of its components. Here we investigated odor-evoked changes in Ca2+ concentration to binary blends of plant-related substances in individually identified glomeruli in the moth Spodoptera littoralis. We used a wide range of blend ratios and a range of concentrations below the level at which glomerular responses become saturated. We found no statistically significant cases where the mixture response was greater than both component responses at the same total concentration (synergistic interactions) and no statistically significant cases where the mixture response was less than either component presented individually (suppressive interactions). Therefore, we conclude that, for the plant mixtures studied, information of their components is preserved in the neural representations encoded at the first stage of olfactory processing in this moth species.
Organisms show a remarkable inter-individual variation in reproductive success. The proximate causes of this variation are not well understood. We hypothesized that the ultrastructure of costly or complex tissues or organelles might affect reproductive performance. We tested this hypothesis in females of a sphecid wasp, the European beewolf, Philanthus triangulum (Hymenoptera, Sphecidae), that show considerable variation in reproductive success. The most critical component of reproduction in beewolf females is flying with paralysed honeybees, which more than double their weight. Because of the high energetic requirements for flight, we predicted that the ultrastructure of the flight-muscle mitochondria might influence female success. We determined the density of mitochondria and the density of the inner mitochondrial membranes (DIMM) of the flight muscles as well as age, body size and fat content. Only DIMM had a significant influence on female reproductive success, which might be mediated by an elevated adenosine triphosphate (ATP) supply. The variation in DIMM might result from differences in larval provisions or from an accumulation of mutations in the mitochondrial genome. Our results support the hypothesis that the organization of complex structures contributes to inter-individual variation in reproductive success.
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