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Resources » Paper

Lee, Joon Ha et al. (2013) International Worm Meeting "Olfactory Plasticity in Entomopathogenic Nematodes."

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    Status:
    Publication type:
    Meeting_abstract
    WormBase ID:
    WBPaper00043248

    Lee, Joon Ha, & Hallem, Elissa (2013). Olfactory Plasticity in Entomopathogenic Nematodes presented in International Worm Meeting. Unpublished information; cite only with author permission.

    Olfaction is a critical sensory modality that allows an organism to process and respond to the surrounding chemical environment. Despite the importance of olfaction for organismal survival, how olfactory behavior is affected by environmental conditions is poorly understood. We are using Steinernema carpocapsae, a widely distributed entomopathogenic nematode (EPN) that uses olfactory cues to locate insect hosts, to investigate the context-dependent modulation of olfactory behavior. Using chemotaxis assays, we found that temperature has a strong influence on the olfactory behavior of the infective juvenile (IJ) stage of these parasites. In particular, the cultivation temperature of IJs has a dramatic effect on their olfactory responses, and inducing temperature changes alters their olfactory preferences. We then extended the analysis of temperature's influence on olfactory behavior to other EPN species and found that the extent to which temperature affects olfactory preferences varies widely among EPN species with different climate and geographical distributions. We are now investigating the neural mechanisms that mediate temperature-dependent changes in EPN olfactory behavior. We are also investigating whether these changes reflect differences in host preference or host-seeking strategy at different temperatures. Our work with the developmentally-arrested IJs suggests environmental temperature is sufficient to induce neural plasticity and may pave the way for enhancing the efficacy of EPNs as biocontrol agents.

    Affiliation:
    - Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA.


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