2. Behavioral Biology TALKS - Deutsche Zoologische Gesellschaft

arenas to analyze behavioral changes per se, and (2) in one arena partly covered with
spider cues, where the crickets could choose between cue-bearing and cue-less
areas.
Crickets showed both strategies of APB (freeze or escape) which led to a significant
difference in cricket mobility among the investigated spider species. If crickets were
exposed to spider cues only, the magnitude of behavioral change increased
significantly with increasing predator-prey body-size ratio. If crickets could choose
between spider cues and control, their mobility was significantly higher on cues of
diurnal spider species, and the change in mobility correlated significantly with spider
abundance.
We assume that wood crickets can distinguish between their predator species and
respective sizes resulting in predator-prey specific APB’s. Astonishingly wood crickets
tried to escape more often in the former presence of abundant and diurnal
predators, suggesting the capability of olfactory memory for predation risk.
Monday, September 24, 2012
Chair: Duboscq
�13 Dominic Kugel A 701 / 16:00
Early memory phases in Nasonia vitripennis
Authors: Dominic Kugel 1 , Daria Schurmann 1 , Johannes Steidle 1
Affiliation: 1 Universität Hohenheim
During recent years, the wasp Nasonia vitripennis, a parasitoid of fly pupae became
established as an important model organism for the study of learning and memory
formation in parasitic wasps. Whereas longer lasting memory forms as long-term
memory are relatively well studied in this species, nothing is known on earlier
memory forms, like anaesthesia sensitive memory (ASM). The data obtained from
this study suggest that there is a small time window of less than five minutes after
training, where the reaction to a learned odour can be blocked up to 1 hour after
training by exposing wasps to CO2. When applying CO2 at 5 or 15 minutes after
training, the effect is still visible, but much less pronounced. This phase is most likely
equivalent to ASM (anaesthesia sensitive memory), observed in other animals, which
is replaced by a phase insensitive to CO2-treatment (ARM-anaesthesia resistant
memory). ARM most likely ends at 45 to 60 minutes after training and is replaced by
some form of medium term memory, which cannot be inhibited by hypoxia directly
after training. Combined with earlier data, our study represents the first complete
memory structure for olfactory learning in N. vitripennis.
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