| Title: | Post-mating sexual abstinence in a male moth |
| Author(s): | Barrozo RB; Gadenne C; Anton S; |
| Address: | "INRA; UMR 1272 Physiologie de l'Insecte; Signalisation et Communication; Versailles, France" |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 1942-0889 (Electronic) 1942-0889 (Linking) |
| Abstract: | "In most animals, male copulation is dependent on the detection and processing of female-produced sex pheromones. In males, a refractory postejaculatory interval (PEI) follows copulation, allowing them to avoid direct remating until they have replenished their reproductive tracts. In the moth Agrotis ipsilon, newly mated males show a transient inhibition of behavioral and central nervous responses to sex pheromone. Using non-pheromonal (plant) odors, pheromones and their mixture, we now show that the observed lack of pheromone response originates from differential post-mating odor processing in the brain. Although mated males still respond to plant odors alone, their response to mixtures depends on the added pheromone concentration. Below a specific threshold, sex pheromone is not detected at the brain level; above this threshold, it becomes inhibitory. This PEI can thus be interpreted as a <>, which contradicts the generally accepted paradigm of sleep-like/exhaustion behavior during PEI" |
| Keywords: | antennal lobe lepidoptera mating moth noctuidae olfaction pheromone plant odour plasticity; |
| Notes: | "PubMed-not-MEDLINEBarrozo, Romina B Gadenne, Christophe Anton, Sylvia eng 2011/02/19 Commun Integr Biol. 2010 Nov; 3(6):629-30. doi: 10.4161/cib.3.6.13507. Epub 2010 Nov 1" |
