Taste Processing in Insects

Glendinning, John I.

doi:10.1002/9781118971758.ch41

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 187 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Within a species, nutritional needs influence the gustatory response ( Blystone 2015 ), e.g., depending on: i) ovarian maturation stage, because egg production often creates a need for protein (e.g., Solari et al 2015 ); ii) mating status (e.g., Hussain et al 2016a ), because courtship may use up energy or particular nutrients used to attract mates and protect offspring (e.g., Eisner et al 1996 ), and iii) prior exposure to the compound or other tastants (e.g., Zhou et al 2010 , Asparch et al 2016 , Bestea et al 2021 ). Much research has been on individual tastants, but gustatory response to a mixture may be more or less than the sum of the responses to the individual tastant components (e.g., Omand and Dethier 1969 , Städler and Schöni 1991 , van Loon et al 2008 , Glendinning 2015 ).…”

Section: Appetitive or Aversivementioning

confidence: 99%

Gustation in insects: taste qualities and types of evidence used to show taste function of specific body parts

King

Gunathunga

2023

Journal of Insect Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The insect equivalent of taste buds are gustatory sensilla, which have been found on mouthparts, pharynxes, antennae, legs, wings, and ovipositors. Most gustatory sensilla are uniporous, but not all apparently uniporous sensilla are gustatory. Among sensilla containing more than one neuron, a tubular body on one dendrite is also indicative of a taste sensillum, with the tubular body adding tactile function. But not all taste sensilla are also tactile. Additional morphological criteria are often used to recognize if a sensillum is gustatory. Further confirmation of such criteria by electrophysiological or behavioral evidence is needed. The five canonical taste qualities to which insects respond are sweet, bitter, sour, salty, and umami. But not all tastants that insects respond to easily fit in these taste qualities. Categories of insect tastants can be based not only on human taste perception, but also on whether the response is deterrent or appetitive and on chemical structure. Other compounds that at least some insects taste include, but are not limited to: water, fatty acids, metals, carbonation, RNA, ATP, pungent tastes as in horseradish, bacterial lipopolysaccharides, and contact pheromones. We propose that, for insects, taste be defined not only as a response to nonvolatiles but also be restricted to responses that are, or are thought to be, mediated by a sensillum. This restriction is useful because some of the receptor proteins in gustatory sensilla are also found elsewhere.

show abstract