Publications by authors named "L J Zwiebel"
Background: The development of economically viable and environmentally neutral tools to control insects that consume or damage over 20% of global agriculture or vector human and animal disease represents one of the most important challenges of the 21st century. The suite of chemical-based strategies currently employed to control insect populations rely primarily on insecticides, which are subject to rapid resistance and often have harmful off-target environmental and health-related impacts, and, to a lesser degree, repellents, which typically rely on masking attractive odors. The discovery and characterization of Vanderbilt University allosteric agonists (VUAAs), a family of small-molecule agonists that target the highly conserved, insect-specific odorant receptor coreceptor (Orco), raise the potential for the development of a novel repellent paradigm for vector/pest management.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAge-related changes in behavior and sensory perception have been observed in a wide variety of animal species. In ants and other eusocial insects, workers often progress through an ordered sequence of olfactory-driven behavioral tasks. Notably, these behaviors are plastic, and workers adapt and rapidly switch tasks in response to changing environmental conditions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: Age-related changes in behavior and sensory perception have been observed in a wide variety of animal species. In ants and other eusocial insects, workers often progress through an ordered sequence of olfactory-driven behavioral tasks. Notably, these behaviors are plastic, and workers adapt and rapidly switch tasks in response to changing environmental conditions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Camponotus floridanus ant colonies are comprised of a single reproductive queen and thousands of sterile female offspring that consist of two morphologically distinct castes: smaller minors and larger majors. Minors perform most of the tasks within the colony, including brood care and food collection, whereas majors have fewer clear roles and have been hypothesized to act as a specialized solider caste associated with colony defense. The allocation of workers to these different tasks depends, in part, on the detection and processing of local information including pheromones and other chemical blends such as cuticular hydrocarbons.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAnopheline larvae rely on their antennae to respond to a complex suite of stimuli with which they navigate their aquatic environment, search for food, and avoid predators and pollution. Chemosensory signaling initiates on dendrites innervating the sensory peg and sensory cone, which are adjacently located at the distal (apical) end of the larval antennae. These structures are the primary sites for the detection of both soluble and volatile semiochemicals, which are biologically relevant chemical signals (typically unitary or blends of compounds) released by one organism that affect the behavior of another.
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