Larval learning affects adult nest-mate recognition in the ant Aphaenogaster senilis

Relatório de estágio do mestrado em Ensino da Educação Física nos Ensinos Básico e Secundário, apresentada à Faculdade de Ciências do Desporto e Educação Física da Universidade de CoimbraO Mestrado em Ensino da Educação Física nos Ensino Básico e Secundário da Faculdade de Ciências do Desporto e Educação Física da Universidade de Coimbra, engloba uma componente prática que permite a profissionalização, através do aprofundamento alargado dos conhecimentos de intervenção profissional na área de Educação Física. O presente documento denominado Relatório Final do Estágio Pedagógico, foi produzido com o propósito de descrever todo o processo de aprendizagem realizado ao longo da nossa intervenção pedagógica na Escola Básica 2,3/S Dr. Daniel de Matos - Vila Nova de Poiares, com a turma do 9º B no presente ano letivo. Deste modo, todo este documento contempla um conjunto de tarefas inerentes ao processo de ensino-aprendizagem que permite a organização, realização, avaliação e reflexão de todo o processo pedagógico. O relatório apresenta-se estruturado de acordo com as atividades desenvolvidas, iniciando com o primeiro capítulo, onde refletimos sobre Expectativas e Opções Iniciais em Relação ao Estágio. Seguimos com a Análise Reflexiva da Prática Pedagógica, mais precisamente no que respeita ao Planeamento; Realização e Avaliação. Passamos para a reflexão da Atitude Ético-Profissional, à Justificação das Opções Tomadas, e uma Síntese Conclusiva no âmbito de toda a nossa intervenção pedagógica. Por último e não menos importante, temos o segundo capítulo, referente ao tema problema - A influência das aulas de educação física no âmbito do programa “Toca a Mexer” na Coordenação Motora de crianças com NEE, que iremos tratar mais adiante. Palavras-chave: Reflexão. Docência. Competências. Pratica Pedagógica. Coordenação Motora. Abstract The Master of Education Physical Education in Elementary and Secondary Education of the Faculty of Sport Sciences and Physical Education, University of Coimbra, includes a practical component that enables professional, by deepening broadened the professional intervention of knowledge in Physical Education. This document called Final Report of the Teacher Training, was produced for the purpose of describing the whole process of learning done throughout our educational intervention in Primary School 2.3 / S Dr. Daniel de Matos - Vila Nova de Poiares, with 9th class B in this school year. Thus, throughout this document includes a set of tasks of teaching-learning process that allows the organization, implementation, evaluation and reflection of the entire educational process. The report is structured according to the activities, starting with the first chapter, where we reflect on expectations and Start Options in Relation to Stage. We follow with the Reflective Analysis of Teaching Practice, specifically with regard to planning; Achievement and Assessment. We passed to the reflection of Ethical and Professional Attitude, the justification of the options sockets, and a Conclusive Synthesis under all our pedagogical intervention. Last but not least, we have the second chapter, referring to the theme problem - The influence of physical education classes under the program "Play to Stir"on the Motor Coordination of children with SEN, which we will address later

Rethinking recognition: social context in adult life rather than early experience shapes recognition in a social wasp

Social recognition represents the foundation of social living. To what extent social recognition is hard-wired by early-life experience or flexible and influenced by social context of later life stages is a crucial question in animal behaviour studies. Social insects have represented classic models to investigate the subject, and the acknowledged idea is that relevant information to create the referent template for nest-mate recognition (NMR) is usually acquired during an early sensitive period in adult life. Experimental evidence, however, highlighted that other processes may also be at work in creating the template and that such a template may be updated during adult life according to social requirements. However, currently, we lack an ad hoc experiment testing the alternative hypotheses at the basis of NMR ontogeny in social insects. Thus, to investigate the mechanisms underlying the ontogeny of NMR in Polistes wasps, a model genus in recognition studies, and their different role in determining recognition abilities, we subjected Polistes dominula workers to different olfactory experiences in different phases of their life before inserting them into the social environment of a novel colony and testing them in recognition bioassays. Our results show that workers develop their NMR abilities based on their social context rather than through pre-imaginal and early learning or self-referencing. Our study demonstrates that the social context represents the major component shaping recognition abilities in a social wasp, therefore shedding new light on the ontogeny of recognition in paper wasps and prompting the reader to rethink about the traditional knowledge at the basis of the recognition in social insects. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Signal detection theory in recognition systems: from evolving models to experimental tests'

The ontogeny of nestmate recognition in ants and social wasps

Chez les insectes sociaux, la capacité à reconnaître les compagnons du nid des autres a évolué du fait de l’intérêt à distinguer les individus apparentés. En effet, il est avantageux que les actes de coopération soient uniquement dirigés vers les individus apparentés. La faculté de discrimination repose sur la capacité à percevoir les signaux de reconnaissance (hydrocarbures cuticulaires) d'un individu rencontré et de le comparer avec une représentation de l'odeur de sa propre colonie. L'ontogénèse de la reconnaissance des compagnons du nid et les processus d'apprentissage qui pourraient les sous-tendre ont été peu explorés jusqu’à ce jour. Il a été suggéré que les insectes sociaux apprennent l'odeur de leur colonie pendant les premières étapes de la vie adulte. L'objectif de ce travail était de rechercher les principales caractéristiques de l'ontogénèse du processus de reconnaissance avec une approche comparative, en utilisant deux modèles : les fourmis et les guêpes sociales. Nous avons montré que le mécanisme général de reconnaissance proposé pour le genre Polistes ne s'appliquait pas à la guêpe P. dominula. Nous avons étudié les mécanismes alternatifs, suggérant l'apprentissage pré-imaginal et le mécanisme d'auto-référence. Nous avons mis en évidence pour la première fois que la fourmi Aphaenogaster senilis apprenait, durant la vie larvaire, des signaux l'importance possible de processus cognitifs précédemment négligés tels que chimiques importants pour la reconnaissance. Ainsi, l’existence et la fonctionnalité de la mémoire larvaire ont été révélées chez les fourmis, élargissant nos connaissances sur les mécanismes de reconnaissance des compagnons du nid, l'apprentissage et la mémoire.In social insects the ability to recognize nestmates from non‐nestmates evolved as a result of the advantages of distinguishing related individuals. Indeed, are gained only if cooperative acts are directed towards realtives. This discrimination ability relies on the capacity of perceiving recognition cues (cuticular hydrocarbons) of an encountered individual and of comparing them with a neural representation of the own colony odour. Relatively little is known about the ontogeny of nestmate recognition, and the learning processes that might be involved. It has been suggested that social insects learn their colony odour during the early stages of adult life. The overall aim of the present work was to investigate the main features of the ontogeny of nestmate recognition process with a comparative approach, using two different models: ants and social wasps. In particular, I investigated wheter general recognition mechanism proposed for the Polistes genus applies to Polistes dominula and I found that this is not the case. I studied alternative mechanisms and provided novel insights into the ontogeny of nestmate recognition in social wasps, suggesting the possible importance of previously neglected cognitive processes, such as pre-imaginal learning and self-reference phenotype matching. In ants, I showed for the first time that Aphaenogaster senilis learn chemical cues important for adult nestmate recognition during the larval life, thus larval memory is something present and functional in ants. This result gives significant insight for the study of nestmate recognition, the mechanisms at the basis, learning and memory in ants, opening new questions concerning interesting phenomena as pre-imaginal learning

Data from: Phenotypic correlation between queen and worker brood care supports the role of maternal care in the evolution of eusociality

Cooperative brood care by siblings, a defining feature of eusociality, is hypothesized to be evolutionarily derived from maternal care via shifts in the timing of the expression of genes underlying maternal care. If sibling and maternal care share a genetic basis, the two behaviors are expected to be genetically and phenotypically correlated. We tested this prediction in the black garden ant Lasius niger by quantifying the brood retrieval rate of queens and their first and later generation worker offspring. Brood retrieval rate of queens was positively phenotypically correlated with the brood retrieval rate of first generation but not with later generation workers. The difference between first and later generation workers could be due to the stronger similarity in care behavior provided by queens and first generation workers compared to later generations. Furthermore, we found that queen retrieval rate was positively correlated with colony productivity, suggesting that natural selection is acting on maternal care. Overall, our results support the idea of a shared genetic basis between maternal and sibling care as well as queen and worker traits more generally, which has implications for the role of intercaste correlations in the evolution of queen and worker traits and eusociality

Copie de Lasius all data_check

All behavioral dat

Colony Productivity

Colony productivity dat

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R script for all analyse