When a female nematode encounters her mate in a Petri dish, sparks fly. She tracks him by scent, makes a beeline, and becomes pregnant within moments of contact. However, the hermaphroditic version of these tiny roundworms has a different story. Anatomically female but capable of self-fertilization, hermaphrodites are uninterested in mating until their sperm supply runs dry. Only then do they seek out males.
“Biologists are just beginning to uncover how behaviors evolve, and courtship behaviors are among the most striking,” says Rockefeller neuroscientist Cori Bargmann. “We studied nematode mating rituals to better understand how behaviors change between species.”
Commonly known as roundworms, nematodes are a diverse group of organisms found in almost every habitat on Earth. Among them are hermaphrodites capable of self-fertilization. Bargmann’s team compared strategies of hermaphroditic and non-hermaphroditic members of the Caenorhabditis genus.
“These animals all look the same,” says Margaret Ebert, lead author on the study and research associate in the Bargmann lab. “But they use their nervous systems differently to produce vastly different mating behaviors.”
The researchers began by observing interactions between male and female Caenorhabditis. “We knew almost nothing about female behavior,” Bargmann says. “Before studying hermaphrodites, the first question was what females do.”
2024-03-07 12:00:05
Article from phys.org