Symposium: Chemicals that Organize Ecology: Towards a Greater Integration of Chemoreception, Neuroscience, Organismal Biology, and Chemical Ecology

Primary goal: integrate organismal and ecological chemically-mediated mechanisms. We feel there is an important gap worth bridging between 1) how olfactory and defensive chemicals organize the movement of adult organisms and 2) how chemicals help organize food webs.

Overview: Chemicals released into the environment are critical for many organisms. Three examples (among many others) include defensive compounds that deter competitors or predators, metabolic by-products that are used as cues by potential prey to avoid a would-be predators, or pheromones used to attract potential mates. Natural selection will affect both the composition and quantity of chemicals released by an organism, as well as the ability in other organisms to detect and respond to those released chemicals. Numerous fields of biology have focused on release of and/or response to chemicals, and this work is contributing to the growth of chemical ecology and chemosensory behavioral studies. Our goal is to bring together a usually disparate group of researchers who have the common goal of understanding how selection has led to the production of different chemicals or the detection and generation of responses to those chemicals. In most cases, selection is driving both release and response to chemicals, yet the focus has usually been on just one aspect: either the release of a chemical or a response to a chemical. We hope to provide an opportunity for integration across this divide so that both can be considered by more researchers. We believe sharing divergent perspectives from researchers working in disparate habitats, taxa, and levels of analysis could lead to interesting and unexpected syntheses with regard to how selection shapes chemical release and response.

Sponsors:

DNB, DCPB and DIZ

Organizers

• James Murray
• Russell Wyeth

Speakers

S10.0 Wednesday, Jan. 7, 08:15 MURRAY, J.:

Introduction

S10.1 Wednesday, Jan. 7, 08:30 VASEY, G.; LUKEMAN, R.; WYETH, R.C.*:

Where was that smell coming from? A mathematical model of odor-gated rheotaxis in variable flow direction conditions indicates variation in adaptive navigational strategies.

S10.2 Wednesday, Jan. 7, 09:00 CARDE, R T*; BAU, J:

Optimal strategies for finding a resource-linked odor plume: theories and lessons from flying insects

S10.3 Wednesday, Jan. 7, 09:30 EDISON, Arthur S:

Metabolomics as a tool to study chemical communication

S10.4 Wednesday, Jan. 7, 10:30 GOYRET, J*; YUAN, M:

Olfaction and Vision in the Innate Recognition of Nectar Sources Under Different Illuminances

S10.5 Wednesday, Jan. 7, 11:00 KNADEN, Markus:

Homing in desert ants using multiple sensory modalities.

S10.6 Wednesday, Jan. 7, 11:30 GARDINER, Jayne:

Finding food, finding home: the chemical ecology of sharks

S10.7 Wednesday, Jan. 7, 13:30 LUNCEFORD, B.E.*; PADOVE COHEN, S; BLOOMQUIST, R; NAGLE, M.P.; SHIN, C; MCCARTY, N.A.; KUBANEK, J:

Aversive chemoreception in predatory fish

S10.8 Wednesday, Jan. 7, 14:00 VAN ALSTYNE, K.L.:

HARMFUL NATURAL PRODUCTS PRODUCED BY GREEN TIDE SEAWEEDS AND THEIR POTENTIAL EFFECTS ON OTHER ORGANISMS

S10.9 Wednesday, Jan. 7, 14:30 FERRER, RP:

Saxitoxin and the ochre sea star: Molecule of keystone significance and a classic keystone species

S10.10 Wednesday, Jan. 7, 15:00 SMEE, Delbert*; SCHERER, Avery; LUNT, Jessica; DRAPER, Alex:

Turbidity triggers mesopredator release by altering chemically mediated trophic interactions