Nick Amador The scientific article, "Retention of Memory through Metamorphosis: Can a Moth Remember What It Learned As a Caterpillar?" attempts to answer five research questions. I will be covering the following three: "Do larvae learn aversive cues?" "Does aversive behavior persist across larval molts?" and "Does aversive behavior persist through metamorphosis?" No hypotheses were provided, but the experiments were successful in reaching conclusive results. The larval moths (caterpillars) were taught to avoid the odor of the chemical Ethyl Acetate (EA). The methodology for this process was as follows: M. Sexta larvae, which express neither attraction nor aversion toward EA, received a mild electrical shock immediately after they were exposed to the chemical. This produced an aversion toward the EA, as 78% of caterpillars that received the shock showed a preference to ambient air over the EA. The difference between control …show more content…
M. Sexta larvae have five phases of their life, called instars, before they start the process of pupation. 81% of the larvae who were taught to avoid EA during their third instars still showed an aversion to the chemical late in their fifth instars, just before pupation (with a p-value of less than 0.001, showing the difference between the fifth instar caterpillars who received the shock during their third instars and the control caterpillars, in terms of aversion to EA, to be significant.) This data was similar enough to the larvae that were both taught to avoid EA and tested for EA aversion in their fifth instars, that it was safe to assume that the differences in the data were caused by random chance (based on a p-value of 0.74) Therefore, aversive cues and behavior persist across larval molts, and the time between third and fifth instars doesn't show a significant difference in levels of response to
Stevenson PA, Hofmann HA, Schoch K, Schildberger K. 2000. The fight and flight responses of crickets depleted of biogenic amines. Journal of Neurobiology 43:107-120.
Cephalopods are known to be exceptionally intelligent by invertebrate standards and in some respects even rival “higher” vertebrates. These animals have many highly evolved sensory and processing organs that allow them to gain a greater understanding of their environment and their place within it. Due to their advanced structures, many of which are analogous to vertebrate structures, and abilities they have been widely studied. Their methods of learning have been of prime interest and many experiments have been conducted to determine the different ways in which octopuses can learn. From these experiments four main kinds of learning have been identified in octopuses: associative learning, special learning,
The gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar) is a highly disruptive species that can, and has played a distinctive role in the lives of many organisms. Included in these organisms are various deciduous trees and shrubs, wildlife species that share the same environment, and even humans. The gypsy moth destroys the beauty of woodlands via defoliation, alters ecosystems and wildlife habitats, and disrupts our own lives. It should therefore come as no surprise that the U.S. Department of Agriculture and many other agencies have taken huge steps to help diminish populations of this small, yet persistent species. In an effort to control these overwhelming populations, five chemical control agents have been used to suppress and/or eradicate the gypsy moth. Following, is a discussion of each chemical and their potentially hazardous effects on humans.
Nonassociative learning refers to a change in the magnitude of a response following the repeated exposure to a particular stimulus. More often than not, nonassociative learning is divided into three forms: habituation, dishabituation, and sensitization and explained through a dual process view in which one process yields habituation to a stimulus, and yet another, separate, process causes both dishabituation and sensitization. Emilie A. Marcus, Thomas G. Nolen, Catharine H. Rankin, and Thomas J. Carew (1988) challenged this perspective by suggesting that dishabituation and sensitization, as well as inhibition, can stand independent and be dissociated in adult and juvenile Aplysia.
Johan, J. B. G. .. d. V. a. J. P. K., 1990. Filial Imprinting and Associatid Learning. THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, Volume 428, pp. 313-329.
Fear conditioning is a commonly used behavioral paradigm to test an organism’s ability to create associations and learn to avoid aversive stimuli. There are two methodologies: cue and contextual fear conditioning (Kim & Jung, 2006). In cued fear conditioning, a neutral conditioned stimulus (CS) is paired with an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US) which activates a strong unconditioned fear responses (UR). After a continued training period, the neutral CS is now able to activate a conditioned response (CR). Similarly, context conditioning occurs when the background or context cues, during the condition training, is able to predict the US and activate the fear response. For example, a mice can be placed in a novel environment and given an aversive stimulus (e.g. footshock). When the mice is returned to that same environment, it will display a CR (e.g. freezing). The mice’s ability for contextual fear conditioning is dependent on whether it was able to learn and associate its environment with the aversive stimulus. (Curzon, Rustay, and Browman, 2009)
In the article “Remember, ladies, fitting into that bikini is as easy as (eating) pie”, Dave Barry, humor columnist for the Miami Herald, uses whimsy and wit to give his opinion on the fashion industry’s portrayal of the “ideal woman.” The media has successfully plastered the image of the “ideal” female form in every nook and cranny of society, and it seems that Dave Barry is sick of it. Though his article is short, his point is clear. Barry is saying that women need to stop listening to the fickle fashion world that tells them they need to look like this pencil-thin, “one-size-fits-all” image that they sell, and instead, learn to be comfortable in their own skin-cellulite and stomach pooch included.
Pesticides that behave like the female hormone estrogens can have serious effects on reproductive success and function on animal exposed to them. Reproductive success or fitness is defined by having live reproductively capable off...
Classical conditioning emphasises the importance of learning from the environment and supports nurture over nature. However, limiting the source of learning to only environment is a reductionist explanation of behaviour. When complex behavi...
Nairne, J. S., & Pandeirada, J. S. (2010). Adaptive memory: Ancestral priorities and the mnemonic values of survival processing. Cognitive Psychology, 61(1), 1-22.
S. vulgaris are known as opportunistic feeders -- they eat whatever is available, but favor fruit crops. In 1992, starlings were one of the major bird species to damage a minimum of $4.4 million worth of grapes in the United States.(Linz, Homan, Gaulker, Penry, & Bleier, 2007) In order to reduce crop consumption, the United States Department of Agriculture has been conducting studies to test the efficacy of various deterrents placed on crops and pellets. These deterrents took advantage of the starlings’ lack of sucrase, an enzyme that is needed to break down sucrose. Adding anthraquinone-based repellents to sweet corn and blueberry among other foods was indicated to have been increasingly effective at repellency as the dosages increased.(Tupper, et al., 2014) European Starlings are voracious consumers of all crops, but additives may provide a method to reduce loss of developing
Many aphid species are partners in mutualistic relationships with several ant taxa (Flatt and Weisser 2000). The degree of this mutualism can be either obligate or facultative depending on several ecological and physiological factors (Stadler and Dixon 2005). Aphids produce nourishing, sugar-rich honeydew which ants can procure by stroking the aphids’ anus or nectar organ with their antennae (Yao and Akimoto 2001). In return, ants offer the aphids protection from predators and parasitoids (Yao and Akimoto 2001). Ants also can perform hygienic services for the aphid colony by removing exuviae and excrement which decreases the risk of fungal growth (Detrain et al. 2010). Honeydew-collecting ants involved in these interactions include the subfamilies Formicinae and Dolichoderinae, as well as several species in the Myrmica and Tetramorium genera of the Myrmicinae subfamily (Stadler and Dixon 2005).
These studies show that memory transience directly corresponds to an organism’s fitness and ability to process, analyze and solve new problems it is confronted with; and that it is responsible for increasing an organism’s behavioral flexibility and allows for an organism to make educated predictions based not only on past events but also on present information. Transience gives valuable insight into the mechanism of memory in the brain, proving that memory is not as static as some might assume nor is it as simple as the model of memory used in computers; rather it is a dynamic pool of information that is constantly updating and modifying itself to better understand the world around it. It allows the brain to grow and learn unimpeded acting as a silent regulator by removing detrimental information and replacing it with useful information; and while it is incredibly important to understand what transience is, the mechanisms behind it and what its purpose is, it is only one of many mechanisms involved in memory and even by fully understanding transience we have barely scratched the surface of what is truly going on in the
Behaviorists believe that development is not tied to biologically determined stages. Development results from organization of existing behaviors. There are two categories of learning: classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Classical conditioning focuses on associations linked to involuntary behaviors. Pavlov is the father of modern learning theory. Through his experiment he discovered that an unconditioned stimulus could automatically trigger an involuntary response. For example, a dog was placed in a dark room and a light was turned on. After 30 seconds some food was placed in the dog’s mouth, stimulating the salivation reflex. This procedure was repeated several times- each time the presentation of food was paired with the light. After a while the light, which initially has no relationship to salivation, produced the response itself. The dog has been conditioned to respond to the light. In Pavlov’s terms, the presentation of food was the unconditioned stimulus. The light was a conditioned stimulus; its effect required conditioning. Salivation to the food was called the unconditioned reflex, salivation to the light a conditioned reflex.
Frequency of application is defined as how often an insecticide is used that influence resistance development. Resistance can happen in many ways such as met...