Abstract
The neuro-mechanisms that regulate insect reproduction are not fully understood. Biogenic amines, including octopamine, are neuromodulators that have been shown to modulate insect reproduction in various ways, e.g., promote or inhibit insect mating or oviposition. In this study, we examined the role of octopamine in regulating the reproduction behaviors of a devastating underground insect pest, the dark black chafer (Holotrichia parallela). We first measured the abundance of octopamine in different neural tissues of the adult chafer pre- and post-mating, demonstrating that octopamine decreased in the abdominal ganglia of females but increased in males post-mating. We then fed the adult H. parallela with a concentration gradient of octopamine to test the effects on insect reproductive behaviors. Compared with its antagonist mianserin, octopamine at the concentration of 2 µg/mL resulted in the highest increase in males’ preference for sex pheromone and females’ oviposition, whereas the mianserin-treatment increased the survival rate and prolonged the lifespan of H. parallela. In addition, we did not observe significant differences in egg hatchability between octopamine and mianserin-treated H. parallela. Our results demonstrated that octopamine promotes H. parallela mating and oviposition with a clear low dosage effect, illustrated how neural substrates modulate insect behaviors, and provided insights for applying octopamine in pest management.
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Data availability statement
All datasets generated for this study are included in the article and the supplementary information.
Code Availability
SPSS v23.0 was used for this study and it is available online (https://www.ibm.com).
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This work was funded by the National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFE013400) and the National Science Foundation of China (31371997).
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KL, YC, JY and SZ conceived and designed research. DL conducted the experiments. DL, XZ, CF, and HF analyzed and interpreted the data. DL wrote the first draft of the manuscript. The manuscript was revised and edited by KL and HF.
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Liu, D., Zhang, X., Chiqin, F. et al. Octopamine modulates insect mating and Oviposition. J Chem Ecol 48, 628–640 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-022-01366-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-022-01366-2