Modelling nutrition across organizational levels: From individuals to superorganisms

Lihoreau, Mathieu; Buhl, Jérôme; Charleston, Michael A.; Sword, Gregory A.; Raubenheimer, David; Simpson, Stephen J.

doi:10.1016/j.jinsphys.2014.03.004

Cited by 42 publications

(85 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…Combining experimental approaches of nutritional ecology and collective animal behavior will allow for an empirical examination of how examine how nutrient regulation can be achieved simultaneously at multiple organizational levels, by individuals and groups (Lihoreau et al, 2014. Our study establishes D. melanogaster as a promising model for initiating such research, with the prospect of using the unique combination of behavioral and neurogenetic approaches available in a model organism.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…Social and competitive interactions can have a crucial impact on the feeding choices and acquisition of nutrients by individuals, ultimately affecting fitness traits such as growth, reproduction and lifespan (Lihoreau et al, 2014. In gregarious species, these interactions often lead to complex group dynamics such as the collective decision to exploit the same feeding site among several alternatives of various qualities (Conradt and Roper, 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Collective selection of food patches in Drosophila

Lihoreau

Clarke

Buhl

et al. 2016

Journal of Experimental Biology

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The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster has emerged as a model organism for research on social interactions. Although recent studies have described how individuals interact on foods for nutrition and reproduction, the complex dynamics by which groups initially develop and disperse have received little attention. Here we investigated the dynamics of collective foraging decisions by D. melanogaster and their variation with group size and composition. Groups of adults and larvae facing a choice between two identical, nutritionally balanced food patches distributed themselves asymmetrically, thereby exploiting one patch more than the other. The speed of the collective decisions increased with group size, as a result of flies joining foods faster. However, smaller groups exhibited more pronounced distribution asymmetries than larger ones. Using computer simulations, we show how these non-linear phenomena can emerge from social attraction towards occupied food patches, whose effects add up or compete depending on group size. Our results open new opportunities for exploring complex dynamics of nutrient selection in simple and genetically tractable groups.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Collective selection of food patches in Drosophila

Lihoreau

Clarke

Buhl

et al. 2016

Journal of Experimental Biology

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“…Over the past decades, comparative research in nutritional ecology has showed how individual animals efficiently self-regulate their intake of multiple nutrients simultaneously and how this varies across developmental stages, taxonomic groups and feeding guilds (Behmer, 2009;Raubenheimer, 1993, 2012;Simpson et al, 2015a,b). However, much less is known about how these complex regulatory behaviours are affected by social and competitive interactions in groups and populations (Lihoreau et al, 2014Senior et al, 2015Senior et al, , 2016Simpson et al, 2010). Many animals use social information provided by conspecifics to select food resources (Danchin et al, 2004;Giraldeau and Caraco, 2000).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Many animals use social information provided by conspecifics to select food resources (Danchin et al, 2004;Giraldeau and Caraco, 2000). Therefore, under these conditions, an individual's decision to eat a food depends not only on its own nutritional requirements, but also on the requirements of others, including social partners and competitors (Lihoreau et al, 2014). These trade-offs between optimising individual nutrition and interacting socially can have important consequences on group-level phenomena, such as social structures and collective dynamics .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Drosophila females trade off good nutrition with high quality oviposition sites when choosing foods

Lihoreau

Poissonnier

Isabel

et al. 2016

Journal of Experimental Biology

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Animals, from insects to humans, select foods to regulate their acquisition of key nutrients in amounts and balances that maximise fitness. In species in which the nutrition of juveniles depends on parents, adults must make challenging foraging decisions that simultaneously address their own nutrient needs as well as those of their progeny. Here, we examined how the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, a species in which individuals eat and lay eggs in decaying fruits, integrate feeding decisions (individual nutrition) and oviposition decisions (offspring nutrition) when foraging. Using cafeteria assays with artificial diets varying in concentrations and ratios of protein to carbohydrates, we show that D. melanogaster females exhibit complex foraging patterns, alternating between laying eggs on high carbohydrate foods and feeding on foods with different nutrient contents depending on their own nutritional state. Although larvae showed faster development on high protein foods, both survival and learning performance were higher on balanced foods. We suggest that the apparent mismatch between the oviposition preference of females for high carbohydrate foods and the high performances of larvae on balanced foods reflects a natural situation where high carbohydrate ripened fruits gradually enrich in proteinaceous yeast as they start rotting, thereby yielding optimal nutrition for the developing larvae. Our findings that animals with rudimentary parental care uncouple feeding and egg-laying decisions in order to balance their own diet and provide a nutritionally optimal environment to their progeny reveal unsuspected levels of complexity in the nutritional ecology of parent-offspring interactions.

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“…To deal with this variability, insect herbivores assess the nutrients present in different plant tissues and regulate the intake of specific nutrients to meet their physiological demands Simpson and Raubenheimer, 1999;Behmer, 2009;Simpson et al, 2015). The process of acquiring the optimal balance of key nutrients to fuel growth and reproduction strongly impacts insect performance, with consequences for the evolution of plant-insect interactions and host-plant associations (Bernays and Chapman, 1994;Bernays and Bright, 2005), dispersal and movement patterns Bazazi et al, 2008;Srygley et al, 2009;Hansen et al, 2011) and even the evolution of higher order social interactions (Guttal et al, 2012;Lihoreau et al, 2014Lihoreau et al, , 2015. For these reasons, delineating the nutritional requirements of an insect species is integral to understanding its feeding ecology, life history strategies, and physiological capabilities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%