Differential neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and behavioral impacts of early-age isolation in a Eusocial insect

Social experience early in life appears to be necessary for the development of species-typical behavior. Although isolation during critical periods of maturation has been shown to impact behavior through gene expression and brain development in invertebrates and vertebrates, workers of some ant species appear resilient to social deprivation and other neurobiological challenges that occur during senescence or due to loss of sensory input. It is unclear if and to what degree neuroanatomy, neurochemistry, and behavior will show deficiencies if social experience in the early adult life of worker ants is compromised. We reared workers of Camponotus floridanus from adult eclosion under conditions of social isolation for two to 53 days, quantified brain compartment volumes, recorded biogenic amine levels in individual brains, and evaluated movement and behavioral performance to compare the neuroanatomy, neurochemistry, brood-care behavior, and foraging (predatory behavior) of isolated workers ..., Colony collection and culture
Three queenright colonies of C. floridanus were collected in or near Gainesville, Florida in 2012 and reared in Harris environmental chambers at 25°C and 40-55% relative humidity on a 12:12 light cycle.  Parent colonies from which workers were sampled had a minimum size of 100, equally distributed between minors and majors.  Artificial nests were made from test tubes 75% filled with water and fitted with a tight cotton plug and placed in Fluon®-lined (Bioquip, Rancho Dominguez, CA) plastic nest boxes 16x11x6 cm to 32x22x6 cm depending on colony size.  Colonies were fed 1M sucrose on saturated cotton balls and varied protein sources (mealworms, scrambled eggs, and fruit flies) every other day in rotation.
Worker social isolation
C. floridanus has a dimorphic worker caste.  We used minor workers because of their diverse behavioral repertoire, which includes brood care and foraging, rather than majors, which are limited to defense.  Four groups of callow minor..., Excel, RStudio. 
 , # Behavioral and Neural Resilience to Isolation in a Eusocial Insect

Coauthors Billie C. Goolsby, E. Jordan Smith, Isabella B. Muratore, Zach N. Coto, Mario L. Muscedere, James F. A. Traniello

Last updated June 29, 2024

#### Uploaded by Billie Goolsby at Stanford University ([[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail]))

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This dataset contains our raw data collected from three titular experiments: immunohistochemistry (IHC), behavior assays, and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Feel free to peruse our data, code, and supplementary data.

#### Description of the data and file structure

The supplementary tables are uploaded in Excel format. The tab sheets are as such: BehaviorAnalysis, HeadwidthandBrainMassAnalysis, Compartment Analysis, AbsoluteTiterAnalysis, RelativetoTotalTiterAnalysis, and RatioAnalysis.

#### **Supplementary Tables Set 1**: Statistics excluding 5- day and 20- day isolate groups

The supplementary tables are uploaded in Excel format. The...