In conclusion it can be said that each of the above hypotheses may explain part of the variation between species. However, a quantitative prediction for a species based on measurement RG7422 mw of another one cannot be made due to the complexity of physiology and ecology. Only empirical data are appropriate to gain insight in the metabolism of a particular arthropod species. The research was funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF): P20802-B16. We greatly appreciate the help with electronics by G.
Stabentheiner and with data evaluation by M. Bodner, M. Brunnhofer, M. Fink, P. Kirchberger, A. Lienhard, L. Mirwald and A. Settari. Many thanks also to two anonymous reviewers for very helpful comments. “
“Olfactory coding follows an orderly sequence of information flow that is comparable across animal species (Ache and Young, 2005 and Hildebrand and Shepherd, 1997). The primary sensory cells express a large repertoire of receptor proteins (the olfactory receptors). Axons of receptor cells converge onto olfactory glomeruli in the antennal lobe (insects) or olfactory bulb (mammals). From there, this orderly information is relayed to higher-order brain areas. Because each glomerulus collects information from one receptor neuron
family, odor information is encoded in the pattern of physiological activity across glomeruli. This combinatorial information constitutes the basis of olfactory processing, and has been investigated using techniques as diverse as single cell recording (Krofczik Ion Channel Ligand Library et al., 2008), patch-clamp (Wilson et al., 2004), multi-unit recordings (Lei et
al., 2004) and optical imaging (Friedrich and Korsching, 1997 and Joerges et al., 1997). The capacity of optical imaging to record from many neurons at the same time while knowing their spatial relationships has made this technique particularly fruitful for unraveling the neural basis of olfactory processing (Galizia and Menzel, 2001). In insects, it is possible to identify comparable glomeruli across animals (Berg et Staurosporine mw al., 2002, Galizia et al., 1999a and Laissue et al., 1999), making this approach even more powerful, and allowing for the generation of a functional atlas of odor-response patterns, as done in the honeybee (Galizia et al., 1999b and Sachse et al., 1999) (http://neuro.uni-konstanz.de/honeybeealatlas). In most species, multiple olfactory systems coexist. In rodents, for example, several parallel olfactory systems code for odors: the main olfactory system, the vomeronasal system, the Grueneberg organ and the septal organ, with different occurrences depending on the species (Breer et al., 2006). Most importantly, while some odors are coded exclusively within one of these organs, others can be coded in parallel in several of these organs. In insects, parallel processing in multiple olfactory tracts has evolved in several lineages (Galizia and Rossler, 2010). In social hymenoptera (e.g.