Meeting Abstract

141.6  Monday, Jan. 7  Physiological conditioning hormesis improves post-irradiation organismal and sexual performance LOPEZ-MARTINEZ, G.*; HIGHT, S. D.; CARPENTER, J. E.; HAHN, D. A.; University of Florida; USDA-ARS, Tallahassee, FL; USDA-ARS, Tifton, GA; University of Florida gc.lopez@ufl.edu

Oxidative stress can be a strong mediator of organismal life history because oxidative stress damage extends from merely affecting survival and longevity into mating and reproduction. The organism must carefully balance their oxidative status with reproduction and performance in order to properly allocate limited resources. We previously showed that physiological conditioning hormesis can lower oxidative damage and improve organismal performance in fruit flies. When a hormetic treatment was applied to these flies early in life, it led to improved longevity and sexual performance later in life. Here we investigated whether these hormetic effects were present in a moth species, Cactoblastis cactorum, which already has a short adult lifespan. These cactus moths must carefully allocate their resources between defense and reproduction as they do not have functional mouthparts as adults and therefore are unable to replenish spent nutrients. We hypothesized that an hour of anoxic conditioning will reduce post-irradiation oxidative damage and lead to an improvement in organismal performance. We found improvements in several metrics of organismal performance including longevity and flight. Male mating was also improved as the anoxia-irradiated males mated with unirradiated females more frequently in subsequent days than their normoxia-irradiated counterparts. The effects of anoxic conditioning hormesis on longevity were restricted to males; however irradiation extended female longevity due to sterility. Currently we are conducting field trials to monitor hormesis-based moth performance in a release-recapture experiment in our field cite in central Florida.