The emergence of eusociality ("true sociality") in several insect lineages represents one of the most successful evolutionary adaptations in the animal kingdom in terms of species richness and global biomass. In contrast to solitary insects, eusocial insects evolved a set of unique behavioral and physiological traits such as reproductive division of labor and cooperative brood care, which likel...

More than 3 million species of insects live around the world in a variety of environments, and display a diversity of sophisticated behaviors adapted to these environments. Our research is aimed at understanding how the brain systems of insects process constantly changing environmental information and generate adaptive behaviors. Specifically, we are investigating how odor information is proces...

Learning ability and immunity to parasites are linked at the physiological level in several insect species. The aim of this work was to investigate the relationship between learning and immunity at an evolutionary level. We tested whether selection for improved learning ability in Drosophila melanogaster led to changes in parasitoid resistance as a correlated response. Similarly, we assayed whe...

Insect prophenoloxidase (PPO) is essential for physiological functions such as melanization of invading pathogens, wound healing and cuticle sclerotization. The insect PPO activation pathway is well understood. However, it is not very clear how PPO is released from hemocytes and how PPO takes part in cellular immunity. To begin to assess this, three Drosophila melanogaster PPO genes were separa...

Acute generalized exanthematous pustulosis (AGEP) is the most common pustular rash. It a delayed immunological reaction involving cellular immunity and characterized by sudden, simultaneous onset of high fever scarlatiniform sheet erythema, which, in several hours, covered with numerous pustules lactescent content, non-follicular, sterile, predominant on face, trunk, folds. regresses less than ...

A neural implementation of the snapshot model of insect navigation proposed by Cartwright and Collett (1987, 1983) is presented. The neural circuit comprises simple model neurons with graded response and requires only local interconnections. As in the snapshot model, differences in bearings as well as differences in apparent size of landmarks are taken into account. The results obtained from si...

Insect residue adhesion to moving surfaces such as turbine blades and aircraft not only causes surface contamination problems but also increases drag on these surfaces. Insect fouling during takeoff, climb and landing can result in increased drag and fuel consumption for aircraft with laminar-flow surfaces. Hence, certain topographical and chemical features of non-wettable surfaces need to be d...