Université de Fribourg

Hormonal modulation of larval begging and growth in the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides

Crook, Tara C. ; Flatt, Thomas ; Smiseth, Per T.

In: Animal behaviour, 2008, vol. 75, no. 1, p. 71-77

Recent studies on birds show that two steroid hormones, testosterone and corticosterone, stimulate nestling begging and growth. Here, we seek to investigate whether juvenile hormone, a major regulatory insect hormone, has similar effects on larval begging and growth in insects. To this end, we experimentally elevated larval juvenile hormone levels by topical application of methoprene, a potent...

Université de Fribourg

Size and shape: the developmental regulation of static allometry in insects

Shingleton, Alexander W. ; Frankino, W. Anthony ; Flatt, Thomas ; Nijhout, H. Frederik ; Emlen, Douglas J.

In: BioEssays, 2007, vol. 29, no. 6, p. 536-548

Among all organisms, the size of each body part or organ scales with overall body size, a phenomenon called allometry. The study of shape and form has attracted enormous interest from biologists, but the genetic, developmental and physiological mechanisms that control allometry and the proportional growth of parts have remained elusive. Recent progress in our understanding of body‐size...

Université de Fribourg

Comparing thyroid and insect hormone signaling

Flatt, Thomas ; Moroz, Leonid L. ; Tatar, Marc ; Heyland, Andreas

In: Integrative and Comparative Biology, 2006, vol. 46, no. 6, p. 777-794

Transitions between different states of development, physiology, and life history are typically mediated by hormones. In insects, metamorphosis and reproductive maturation are regulated by an interaction between the sesquiterpenoid juvenile hormone (JH) and the steroid 20-hydroxy-ecdysone (20E). In vertebrates and some marine invertebrates, the lipophilic thyroid hormones (THs) affect...

Université de Fribourg

Hormonal pleiotropy and the juvenile hormone regulation of Drosophila development and life history

Flatt, Thomas ; Tu, Meng-Ping ; Tatar, Marc

In: BioEssays, 2005, vol. 27, no. 10, p. 999-1010

Understandinghowtraits are integrated at the organismal level remains a fundamental problem at the interface of developmental and evolutionary biology. Hormones, regulatory signaling molecules that coordinate multiple developmental and physiological processes, are major determinants underlying phenotypic integration. The probably best example for this is the lipid-like juvenile hormone (JH)...

Université de Fribourg

Quarantine arthropod invasions in Europe: the role of climate, hosts and propagule pressure

Bacon, Steven J. ; Aebi, Alexandre ; Calanca, Pierluigi ; Bacher, Sven

In: Diversity and Distributions, 2014, vol. 20, no. 1, p. 84-89

Aim: To quantify the relative importance of propagule pressure, climate-matching and host availability for the invasion of agricultural pest arthropods in Europe and to forecast newly emerging pest species and European areas with the highest risk of arthropod invasion under current climate and a future climate scenario (A1F1).Location: Europe.Methods: We quantified propagule pressure,...

Université de Fribourg

Architecture of the primary taste center of Drosophila melanogaster larvae

Colomb, Julien ; Grillenzoni, Nicola ; Ramaekers, Ariane ; Stocker, Reinhard F.

In: The Journal of Comparative Neurology, 2007, vol. 502, no. 5, p. 834-837

A simple nervous system combined with stereotypic behavioral responses to tastants, together with powerful genetic and molecular tools, have turned Drosophila larvae into a very promising model for studying gustatory coding. Using the Gal4/UAS system and confocal microscopy for visualizing gustatory afferents, we provide a description of the primary taste center in the larval central nervous...