Amino acids chemotactile perception in yellow jacket workers

MATTIACCI, A; PIETRANTUONO, A.L; MASCIOCCHI, M; CORLEY, J.C

Congreso; XXXVIII Encontro de Etologia III Reunião de Biologia do Comportamento do Cone Sul; 2021

Sociedade Brasileira de Etologia

Amino acids are essential to maintain protein synthesis, however, perception and discrimination of amino acids are poorly studied in social insects. Social wasps obtaining virtually all their protein requirements from animal sources. Vespula germanica is a eusocial, scavenger, and generalist wasp that has invaded several regions in the last century of the world. We used differential chemotactile conditioning of the maxilla labium extension response (MaLER) to better understand the sensory mechanisms underlying the amino acids perception in wasps. We reward with sucrose solution (unconditional stimulus) only the amino acid or water according to the experimental group. The unrewarded stimulus got a plain toothpick to equalize visual cues. We found that workers are able to perceive and differentiate four essentials and non-essential amino acids (i.e., lysine, glycine, tryptophan, ornithine) from water. We suggest that antennal perception of dissolved amino acids enables wasps to assess the quality of protein resources, but more essays on this topic will be necessary.