{"id":197424,"date":"2020-02-04T08:32:46","date_gmt":"2020-02-04T05:32:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ww-vb.mine.nu\/w108\/how-ants-get-angry-precise-lock-and-key-process-regulates-aggression-acceptance-vanderbilt-news\/"},"modified":"2020-02-04T08:32:46","modified_gmt":"2020-02-04T05:32:46","slug":"how-ants-get-angry-precise-lock-and-key-process-regulates-aggression-acceptance-vanderbilt-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/how-ants-get-angry-precise-lock-and-key-process-regulates-aggression-acceptance-vanderbilt-news\/","title":{"rendered":"How ants get angry: Precise \u201clock and key\u201d process regulates aggression, acceptance | Vanderbilt News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> [ad_1]<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"How ants get angry: Precise \u201clock and key\u201d process regulates aggression, acceptance\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/V-hOEAIg0_E?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">For most social animals, even humans, the ability to distinguish friend versus foe can be a challenge that often can lead to knee-jerk aggression. But when it comes to ants getting aggressive, there\u2019s a more sophisticated method to their madness.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In a new study, published this month in the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Journal of Experimental Biology<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, scientists in the Department of Biological Sciences at Vanderbilt report definitive evidence of a specific mechanism within ants that is responsible for unlocking aggressive behaviors toward other ants. The research\u2014the first to pinpoint this mechanism and its precise role in ant biology\u2014reports a social characteristic which could help account for their evolutionary success.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cEusocial ants are one of the biggest success stories in evolutionary biology, thanks in no small part to their advanced organizational behaviors and complex social interactions,\u201d said <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Laurence Zwiebel<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, senior author of the paper and Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair in Biological Sciences. \u201cFor years, researchers have hypothesized that ants have specific chemical markers which play key roles in their interactions. What surprised us is that ants not only have these markers, but require these signals be very precisely decoded by specific receptors to trigger aggression.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_307275\" style=\"width: 378px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"307275\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/news.vanderbilt.edu\/2020\/02\/03\/how-ants-get-angry-precise-lock-and-key-process-regulates-aggression-acceptance\/download_2020-01-31_09-20-11\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/vu-news\/files\/20200131092038\/Download_2020-01-31_09-20-11.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"6720,4480\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;4&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;Canon EOS 5D Mark IV&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Laurence Zwiebel and Harpegnathos ants. Zwiebel's lab has a paper coming out about the ant's olfactory system, which is the basis of their elaborate social system.  .  (John Russell\/Vanderbilt University)&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1498066095&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;Vanderbilt University&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;35&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;200&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.005&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"\" data-image-description=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/vu-news\/files\/20200131092038\/Download_2020-01-31_09-20-11-600x400.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/vu-news\/files\/20200131092038\/Download_2020-01-31_09-20-11-1600x1067.jpg\" class=\" wp-image-307275\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/vu-news\/files\/20200131092038\/Download_2020-01-31_09-20-11-600x400.jpg\" alt=\"Laurence Zwiebel and Stephen Ferguson\" width=\"378\" height=\"262\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Laurence Zwiebel, Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair in Biological Sciences, and graduate student Stephen Ferguson (John Russell\/Vanderbilt University)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the most important aspects of ant identity is the ability to distinguish nestmates from non-nestmates that typically act as bad actors. To do this, they rely on chemical markers made up of specific odorants on their bodies, which Zwiebel refers to as a \u201ccoat of many odors,\u201d to emit complex odor blends that act as a sort of personal identifier for other ants.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this study, the researchers discovered that ants have to smell and correctly decode these specific compounds on intruder ants from other colonies in order to \u201cunlock\u201d their aggressive behavior and defend their nest. This implies that ants default to acceptance and select aggression only if they are specifically triggered.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">To study this \u201clock and key\u201d mechanism, Zwiebel and graduate student Stephen Ferguson, the lead author on the study, gathered <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Camponotus floridanus <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">ants from nine distinct colonies collected across the Florida Keys.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before testing, they used a specific chemical agent previously discovered by Zwiebel lab to block or over-excite ant odorant receptors. They set up mini-dueling arenas for two ants (either from the same or different colonies) to interact and, if they decide, fight. During each arena test, they filmed the ants to score the interactions based on their aggressive behaviors\u2014the most common being lunging, biting or dragging.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">While ants with normal receptors continued to recognize and fight ants from other colonies, ants with blocked or over-activated receptors displayed dramatically reduced aggressive behavior.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cAccepting friends and rejecting foes is one of the most important decisions an ant worker must make,\u201d said Ferguson. \u201cOur study finds that unless there is a clear and unambiguous threat, ants are more likely to be accepting than they are to be aggressive. This process may have contributed to the evolutionary success of these insects, and there may be important lessons about tempering aggression for other social beings such as humans.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The research is supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health and with endowment funding from Vanderbilt University.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>[ad_2]<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/vanderbilt-research\/~3\/dLhAlpAvmkI\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ad_1] For most social animals, even humans, the ability to distinguish friend versus foe can be a challenge that often can lead to knee-jerk aggression. But when it comes to ants getting aggressive, there\u2019s a more sophisticated method to their madness. In a new study, published this month in the Journal of Experimental Biology, scientists &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":197425,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[126838,6275,107705,95323,126839,33496,814,49091,5705,92251,92252],"class_list":["post-197424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tie-world","tag-aggression","tag-ants","tag-arts-and-science-research","tag-biological-sciences","tag-laurence-zwiebel","tag-nashville","tag-news","tag-research","tag-university","tag-vanderbilt","tag-vanderbilt-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}