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The olfactory pathway of the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum and its comparison to other Coleoptera
Insects are the most successful animals on earth. They have a great impact on almost all terrestrial ecosystems, affecting mankind by beneficial and harmful ways like facilitating vast amounts of human food production via pollination or by being a devastating pest to agricultural products and food s...
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| Format: | Dissertation |
| Sprache: | Englisch |
| Veröffentlicht: |
Philipps-Universität Marburg
2016
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| Zusammenfassung: | Insects are the most successful animals on earth. They have a great impact on almost all terrestrial ecosystems, affecting mankind by beneficial and harmful ways like facilitating vast amounts of human food production via pollination or by being a devastating pest to agricultural products and food stocks as well as spreading diseases. Among insects, Coleoptera are the most divers and species richest order, containing vast quantities of pest species.
The majority of insects depends heavily on their olfactory system to master most tasks they encounter during their lifespan, like finding food sources, hosts, native populations, and mates, or to avoid predators. Despite the diversity and species richness of beetles, as well as their impact as pest, not much is known about the olfactory system of these animals.
To investigate the olfactory system of Coleoptera, we analyzed 1) the olfactory pathway of one model organism in highly detail and 2) we examined particular brain regions of the olfactory system of many beetles and insects and compared them with each other.
1: For the highly detailed analysis of the olfactory pathway of one species we worked with the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum, an already established model organism in some fields of biology like in development and evolution. Experiments requiring genetic methods had been performed in cooperation with the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. Based on immunohistochemical stainings we created 3D-reconstructions of adult and larval brains, helping us to identifying the most prominent brain structures, as a starting point for following projects. On this basis, we decrypted the olfactory pathway of the adult T. castaneum. This includes A) morphological data of the antenna with its olfactory sensilla and neuroanatomical data of the brain structures involved in olfaction, as well as B) molecular data from antennal structures involved in olfaction (like olfactory respectively gustatory receptors or olfactory binding proteins). Furthermore, we identified neuropeptide families within the primary and one higher integration center for olfaction - namely the antennal lobe (AL) and mushroom body (MB) - of T castaneum. Additionally, we investigated one neuropeptide family and its respective receptor within the brain of T. castaneum in detail. We compared this neuropeptide family and its receptor with two structurally similar and closely related neuropeptide families and their receptors.
2: The second focus of this thesis was the investigation of single features of the olfactory pathway and their comparison between different coleopteran-, respectively insect species. In one project we studied the distribution of eight neuropeptide families within the MB of 24 different insect species and compared them with each other, looking for potential evolutionary correlations. Furthermore, we analyzed the AL of 63 different Coleoptera and found an unusual architecture of the AL in some species. In a related project we investigated such an unusual architectured AL of one species (the small hive beetle Aethina tumida) highly detailed.
In this thesis, the brain architecture and especially the olfactory system of Coleoptera had been investigated for the first time in high detail. We revealed new insights regarding the olfactory (respectively chemoreceptive) pathway of these animals. The findings will help to establish T. castaneum as the fist coleopteran model organism for insect neuroscience and in particular for insect olfaction.
The single projects of this thesis will be described in-depth in the following eight chapters. |
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| DOI: | 10.17192/z2016.0654 |