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Chemical Senses Advance Access originally published online on May 17, 2007
Chemical Senses 2007 32(5):483-491; doi:10.1093/chemse/bjm017
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Increased Behavioral and Neuronal Sensitivity to Sex Pheromone after Brief Odor Experience in a Moth

Peter Anderson1, Bill S. Hansson1, Ulf Nilsson1, Qian Han1,3, Marcus Sjöholm1, Niels Skals1,4 and Sylvia Anton2,5

1 Chemical Ecology, Department of Plant Protection Biology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, 230 53 Alnarp, Sweden 2 Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, Unité Mixte de Recherches en Santé Végétale, Centre de Recherches de Bordeaux, BP 81, 33883 Villenave d'Ornon Cedex, France 3 Present address: Department of Biochemistry, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA 4 Present address: Institute of Biology, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, DK-5230 Odense M, Denmark 5 Present address: Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, Unite Mixte de Recherches en Physiologie des Insectes, Centre de Recherches de Versailles, Route de Saint-Cyr, 78026 Versailles Cedex, France

Correspondence to be sent to: Peter Anderson, Chemical Ecology, Department of Crop Science, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, 230 53 Alnarp, Sweden. e-mail: peter.anderson{at}vv.slu.se


  Abstract

Plasticity in the response to stimuli related to food and oviposition cues is well documented in insects. However, responses to cues related to reproduction, for example, sex pheromones, are considered to be innate and thus not affected by experience. Here we show that brief preexposure to sex pheromones, without ensuing reward, lowers the threshold for behavioral response and augments the sensitivity in antennal lobe interneurons to pheromone compared with naive male moths. Thus, the sex pheromone system in insects can be modulated by experience. In addition, we show that the behavioral attraction to sex pheromone increases after preexposure in a time-dependent manner: a short-term effect, possibly a form of sensitization, and a long-term effect after more than 24 h. The behavioral long-term effect is paralleled by an increase in sensitivity of interneurons in the primary olfactory center, whereas the peripheral olfactory system does not change its sensitivity. We hypothesize that short-term sensitization to sex pheromone serves as a kind of alert system, whereas the long-term effect improves male performance when reproductively active females are present.

Key words: antennal lobe, behavioral modulation, experience, neural modulation, olfactory interneurons

Accepted 7 March 2007


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