The genomic basis of army ant chemosensory adaptations

McKenzie, Sean K.; Winston, Max; Grewe, Felix; Asensio, Gabriel Vargas; Rodríguez-Hernández, Natalia; Rubin, Benjamin E. R.; Murillo‐Cruz, Catalina; Beeren, Christoph von; Moreau, Corrie S.; Suen, Garret; Pinto‐Tomás, Adrián A.; Kronauer, Daniel J. C.

doi:10.1111/mec.16198

Cited by 11 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…The expansion of the 9-exon OR subfamily is a common phenomenon in the Hymenoptera. For example, a large number of 9-exon OR subfamily members were found in the genome of the army ant Eciton burchellii, despite having a reduced gene complement relative to other ants [ 39 ]. The 9-exon OR subfamily was also large in the paper wasp, accounting for almost half of the Polistes ORs [ 20 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genome-Wide Analysis of the Odorant Receptor Gene Family in Solenopsis invicta, Ooceraea biroi, and Monomorium pharaonis (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

Zhang

Yang

Jiang

et al. 2023

IJMS

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Olfactory systems in eusocial insects play a vital role in the discrimination of various chemical cues. Odorant receptors (ORs) are critical for odorant detection, and this family has undergone extensive expansion in ants. In this study, we re-annotated the OR genes from the most destructive invasive ant species Solenopsis invicta and 2 other Formicidae species, Ooceraea biroi and Monomorium pharaonis, with the aim of systematically comparing and analyzing the evolution and the functions of the ORs in ant species, identifying 356, 298, and 306 potential functional ORs, respectively. The evolutionary analysis of these ORs showed that ants had undergone chromosomal rearrangements and that tandem duplication may be the main contributor to the expansion of the OR gene family in S. invicta. Our further analysis revealed that 9-exon ORs had biased chromosome localization patterns in all three ant species and that a 9-exon OR cluster (SinvOR4–8) in S. invicta was under strong positive selection (Ka/Ks = 1.32). Moreover, we identified 5 S. invicta OR genes, namely SinvOR89, SinvOR102, SinvOR352, SinvOR327, and SinvOR135, with high sequence similarity (>70%) to the orthologs in O. biroi and M. pharaonis. An RT-PCR analysis was used to verify the antennal expression levels of these ORs, which showed caste-specific expression. The subsequent analysis of the antennal expression profiles of the ORs of the S. invicta workers from the polygyne and monogyne social forms indicated that SinvOR35 and SinvOR252 were expressed at much higher levels in the monogyne workers than in the polygyne workers and that SinvOR21 was expressed at higher levels in polygyne workers. Our study has contributed to the identification and analysis of the OR gene family in ants and expanded the understanding of the evolution and functions of the ORs in Formicidae species.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genome-Wide Analysis of the Odorant Receptor Gene Family in Solenopsis invicta, Ooceraea biroi, and Monomorium pharaonis (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

Zhang

Yang

Jiang

et al. 2023

IJMS

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“…The research also found that pheromones regulate ant reproductive behavior. Volatile pheromones secreted by newborn larvae stimulate the production of oxytocin in the adult ants' brains, which in turn leads to their nurturing behavior towards the larvae [7,8].…”

Section: Swarm Intelligencementioning

confidence: 99%

From Consciousness to Emotion - On the Intelligent Evolution of Complex Systems

Shan¹

2023

Preprint

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Current artificial intelligence (AI) technology is still considered weak AI. However, the progression towards strong AI unavoidably involves grappling with concerns surrounding consciousness, the mind, and creativity. This paper focuses on analyzing consciousness, creativity, and the generation of emotions to explore the possibility of machine-based consciousness, creativity, and emotion. We believe that the emergence of consciousness relies on the complex interplay at different layers within a complex system, rather than wholly relying on the underlying substrates of the system. Thus, it is plausible to consider the existence of machine-based consciousness, creativity, and emotion. Furthermore, swarm intelligence should be recognized as a distinct form of intelligence. Human individuals serve as the foundational substrate enabling the realization of swarm intelligence, with individual intelligence reflecting the projection of swarm intelligence at the individual level. The advanced state of human civilization is primarily attributable to the effect of swarm intelligence. Building upon basic emotions to adapt to environmental conditions, advanced human emotions are a product of the evolutionary process by swarm intelligence. Emotions serve as a pivotal impetus for the formation and development of societies grounded in swarm intelligence. In pursuit of super-AI that surpasses human civilization in the future, nurturing swarm intelligence represents an inevitable trajectory.

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“…These ants thus have the potential to offer new insights into the relationship between social organization, diet, brain size, and mosaic structure. Army ants (Subfamily Dorylinae) are mass-foraging generalist or specialist predators that may form huge colonies of morphologically and behaviorally specialized workers (Kronauer, 2020;McKenzie et al, 2021). Predatory poneroid ants hunt alone or in groups and differ in diet and social complexity (Peeters, 1997;Ward, 2014;Hanisch et al, 2020).…”

Section: Predatory Ants As Models Of Brain Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These differences in hunting and prey-capture strategies, as well as the involvement of different sensory modalities in prey localization (Masuko, 1990;Gronenberg and Tautz, 1994;De la Mora et al, 2008), are associated with changes in behavioral demands for prey recognition, foraging communication, and foraging-task specialization (Schmidt and Overal, 2009) that will be reflected in volumetric changes in functionally specialized brain compartments. Other socioecological traits (activity pattern, nesting and foraging habits, foraging range, and prey distribution) are associated with morphological adaptations such as eye and antenna size, and sensilla type and density, and in turn linked with prey selection, diet, and brain mosaicism (Menzi, 1987;Polidori et al, 2012;Narendra et al, 2013;Ramirez-Esquivel et al, 2014;Bulova et al, 2016;Wittwer et al, 2017;Heinze et al, 2018;McKenzie et al, 2021). Prey olfactory detection and discrimination likely depend on the diversity of sensillae and receptors, and their neuronal projections into individual antennal lobe glomeruli that vary in size and number (Couto et al, 2005;van der Woude and Smid, 2016).…”

Section: Predatory Ants As Models Of Brain Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Socioecology and Evolutionary Neurobiology of Predatory Ants

2022

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Diet and social complexity are hypothesized to drive the evolution of the neuroarchitecture of the brain, but the relative impacts of foraging ecology and social organization have not been fully disentangled. Predatory ant species encompass generalists as well as specialists on remarkably narrow ranges of arthropod prey, and vary in strategy from solitary hunting to group raiding. Dietary differences and variation in individual or group predation appear to be correlated with the use of vision for navigation by solitary huntresses, the predominance of chemical signaling to organize group predation, and the structure, biomechanics, and sensorimotor control of the mandibles, and likely gustatory sensilla. Predatory ants provide the opportunity to separate the relative roles of diet and colony size and brain structure, and offer diverse novel systems to understand adaptive brain mosaicism and the neuronal regulation of predatory behavior. Here we discuss the socioecology of predatory ants and its influence on neuroanatomy. THE NEUROBIOLOGY OF PREDATIONNeuroethological and molecular studies of visual, olfactory, auditory, pheromonal, electrical, and mechanoreceptive sensory systems have identified circuitry underpinning predatory behavior in diverse animal clades (Sillar et al., 2016). Star-nosed moles (Catania, 2011), electric fishes (Sukhum et al., 2018), and bats (Genzel et al., 2018 are renowned models. Predator sensory systems generally reflect foraging ecology. Many predatory insects, for example, have large eyes to detect and pursue moving prey through interceptive or ambush hunting strategies. Optic lobe neurons tuned to the motion of small moving objects regulate predatory behavior (

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The genomic basis of army ant chemosensory adaptations

Abstract: This is an open access article under the terms of the Creat ive Commo ns Attri bution-NonCo mmercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

Cited by 11 publications

References 133 publications

Genome-Wide Analysis of the Odorant Receptor Gene Family in Solenopsis invicta, Ooceraea biroi, and Monomorium pharaonis (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

Genome-Wide Analysis of the Odorant Receptor Gene Family in Solenopsis invicta, Ooceraea biroi, and Monomorium pharaonis (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

From Consciousness to Emotion - On the Intelligent Evolution of Complex Systems

Socioecology and Evolutionary Neurobiology of Predatory Ants

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