Foraging Alters Resilience/Vulnerability to Sleep Disruption and Starvation in Drosophila

Recent human studies suggest that genetic polymorphisms allow an individual to maintain optimal cognitive functioning during sleep deprivation. If such polymorphisms were not associated with additional costs, selective pressures would allow these alleles to spread through the population such that an evolutionary alternative to sleep would emerge. To determine whether there are indeed costs associated with resiliency to sleep loss, we challenged natural allelic variants of the foraging gene (for) with either sleep deprivation or starvation. Flies with high levels of Protein Kinase G (PKG) (forR) do not display deficits in short-term memory following 12 h of sleep deprivation. However, short-term memory is significantly disrupted when forR flies are starved overnight. In contrast, flies with low levels of PKG (fors, fors2) show substantial deficits in short-term memory following sleep deprivation but retain their ability to learn after 12 h of starvation. We found that forR phenotypes could be largely recapitulated in fors flies by selectively increasing the level of PKG in the α/ß lobes of the mushroom bodies, a structure known to regulate both sleep and memory. Together, these data indicate that whereas the expression of for may appear to provide resilience in one environmental context, it may confer an unexpected vulnerability in other situations. Understanding how these tradeoffs confer resilience or vulnerability to specific environmental challenges may provide additional clues as to why an evolutionary alternative to sleep has not emerged

Hubungan Empati Petani Dan Keterampilan Sebagai Fasilitator Di Pusat Pelatihan Pertanian Dan Pedesaan Swadaya Jawa Barat

Tujuan penelitian adalah menganalisis hubungan empati petani dan keterampilan sebagai fasilitator pembelajaran bagi para petani di Pusat Pelatihan Pertanian Swadaya (P4S). Jenis penelitian adalah survei dengan melibatkan 140 orang petani fasilitator P4S di 17 kabupaten, Provinsi Jawa Barat sebagai responden. Sebanyak 86,43% responden memiliki empati dalam kategori sedang dan 13,57% berada dalam kategori tinggi. Sebanyak 54,29% responden memiliki keterampilan memfasilitasi berada dalam kategori tinggi dan 45,71% dalam kategori sedang. Analisis korelasional menunjukkan bahwa terdapat hubungan positif yang signifikan antara empati dan keterampilan memfasilitasi (p<0,05) dengan derajat hubungan yang lemah (r=0,02)

Self-regulation and the foraging gene (PRKG1) in humans

We would like to thank Dr. Sara Mostafavi (University of British Columbia) for directing us to the CMC website regarding gene expression for rs13499 and for statistical advice. This work was supported by NSERC Discovery funds to JD and a Canadian Institute for Advanced Research award to MS.Peer reviewedPostprin

New Frontiers for Organismal Biology

Understanding how complex organisms function as integrated units that constantly interact with their environment is a long-standing challenge in biology. To address this challenge, organismal biology reveals general organizing principles of physiological systems and behavior—in particular, in complex multicellular animals. Organismal biology also focuses on the role of individual variability in the evolutionary maintenance of diversity. To broadly advance these frontiers, cross-compatibility of experimental designs, methodological approaches, and data interpretation pipelines represents a key prerequisite. It is now possible to rapidly and systematically analyze complete genomes to elucidate genetic variation associated with traits and conditions that define individuals, populations, and species. However, genetic variation alone does not explain the varied individual physiology and behavior of complex organisms. We propose that such emergent properties of complex organisms can best be explained through a renewed emphasis on the context and life-history dependence of individual phenotypes to complement genetic data.Organismic and Evolutionary Biolog

Natural Variation in the Thermotolerance of Neural Function and Behavior due to a cGMP-Dependent Protein Kinase

Although it is acknowledged that genetic variation contributes to individual differences in thermotolerance, the specific genes and pathways involved and how they are modulated by the environment remain poorly understood. We link natural variation in the thermotolerance of neural function and behavior in Drosophila melanogaster to the foraging gene (for, which encodes a cGMP-dependent protein kinase (PKG)) as well as to its downstream target, protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A). Genetic and pharmacological manipulations revealed that reduced PKG (or PP2A) activity caused increased thermotolerance of synaptic transmission at the larval neuromuscular junction. Like synaptic transmission, feeding movements were preserved at higher temperatures in larvae with lower PKG levels. In a comparative assay, pharmacological manipulations altering thermotolerance in a central circuit of Locusta migratoria demonstrated conservation of this neuroprotective pathway. In this circuit, either the inhibition of PKG or PP2A induced robust thermotolerance of neural function. We suggest that PKG and therefore the polymorphism associated with the allelic variation in for may provide populations with natural variation in heat stress tolerance. for's function in behavior is conserved across most organisms, including ants, bees, nematodes, and mammals. PKG's role in thermotolerance may also apply to these and other species. Natural variation in thermotolerance arising from genes involved in the PKG pathway could impact the evolution of thermotolerance in natural populations

Epigenetic Regulation of Learning and Memory by Drosophila EHMT/G9a

Behavioral phenotyping and genome-wide profiling of the histone modifier EHMT in Drosophila reveals a mechanism through which an epigenetic writer may control cognition

24hours_fooddep_experiment_freq

Behavior frequency of each treatment and strain