The widely studied and invasive earthworm, Lumbricus terrestris L., 1758 has been the subject of nomenclatural debate for many years. However these disputes were not based on suspicions of heterogeneity, but rather on the descriptions and nomenclatural acts associated with the species name. Large numbers of DNA barcode sequences of the cytochrome oxidase I obtained for nominal L. terrestris and...

The immune response affects learning and memory in insects. Given this and the known fitness costs of both the immune system and learning, does an evolutionary trade-off exist between these two systems? We tested this by measuring the learning ability of 12 bumble-bee (Bombus terrestris) colonies in a free-flying paradigm. We then tested their immune response using the zone of inhibition assay....

DNA methylation is emerging as an important regulator of polyphenism in the social insects. Research has concentrated on differences in methylation between queens and workers, though we hypothesized that methylation is involved in mediating other flexible phenotypes, including pheromone-dependent changes in worker behaviour and physiology. Here, we find that exposure to queen pheromone affects ...

Hosts vary in both their strength of response to a general immunological insult and in their specific susceptibility to different parasite species or different strains of the same parasite. The variation in the general immune response is considered a result of the costs imposed by selection on defended individuals. The variation in the specific response may originate from variation in host and ...

Many bees and wasps learn about the immediate surroundings of their nest during learning flights, in which they look back towards the nest and acquire visual information that guides their subsequent returns. Visual guidance to the nest is simplified by the insects' tendency to adopt similar viewing directions during learning and return flights. To understand better the factors determining the p...

Parasites can influence different host behaviours including foraging, mate choice and predator avoidance. Several recent papers have shown reduced learning abilities in infected insects. However, it is difficult to separate the effects of the immune response from the direct effects of the parasite. Using a free-flying learning paradigm, this paper shows that learning performance is impaired in ...