Biology subjects

Shakeel, M.

Publications and source records attributed to Shakeel, M..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2023

Temporal effects of sugar intake on fly local search and honey bee dance behaviour

Honey bees communicate navigational information of profitable food to nestmates via dance, a small scale walking pattern. Hungry flies and honey bee foragers initiate a sugar-elicited local search that involves path integration and show similarities with dance behaviour. Using a comparative approach, we explored the temporal dynamics of initiation of local search and dance in flies and honey bees, respectively. Passive displacement experiments showed that feeding and initiation of search can be spatially dissociated in both species. Sugar intake increased the probability to initiate a search but onset of walking starts the path integration system guiding the search. When prevented from walking, the motivation to begin a path integration-based search was sustained for 3 min after sugar intake in flies and bees. In flies, the behavioural parameters of search were significantly reduced for 3 min but were higher than flies that were given no sugar stimulus, indicating some degree of meander. These results suggest that sugar elicits two independent behavioural responses: path integration and increased turning, and initiation and duration of path integration system is temporally more restricted. Honey bee dance experiments demonstrated that the motivation of foragers to initiate dance was sustained for 15 min, whereas the number of circuits declined after 3 min. Based on our findings, we propose that the food-intake during foraging has the capability to activate the path integration system in flies and honey bees, and this interaction might have been elaborated during evolution to guide the walking pattern of the honey bee dance.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2021

Surveillance of genetic diversity and evolution in locally transmitted SARS-CoV-2 in Pakistan during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic

Surveillance of genetic diversity in the SARS-CoV-2 is extremely important to detect the emergence of more infectious and deadly strains of the virus. In this study, we monitored mutational events in the SARS-CoV-2 genome through whole genome sequencing. The samples (n=48) were collected from the hot spot regions of the metropolitan city Karachi, Pakistan during the four months (May 2020 to August 2020) of first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The data analysis highlighted 122 mutations, including 120 single nucleotide variations (SNV), and 2 deletions. Among the 122 mutations, there were 71 singletons, and 51 recurrent mutations. A total of 16 mutations, including 5 nonsynonymous mutations, were detected in spike protein. Notably, the spike protein missense mutation D614G was observed in 31 genomes. The phylogenetic analysis revealed majority of the genomes (36) classified as B lineage, where 2 genomes were from B.6 lineage, 5 genomes from B.1 ancestral lineage and remaining from B.1 sub-lineages. It was noteworthy that three clusters of B.1 sub-lineages were observed, including B.1.36 lineage (10 genomes), B.1.160 lineage (11 genomes), and B.1.255 lineage (5 genomes), which represent independent events of SARS-CoV-2 transmission within the city. The sub-lineage B.1.36 had higher representation from the Asian countries and the UK, B.1.160 correspond to the European countries with highest representation from the UK, Denmark, and lesser representation from India, Saudi Arabia, France and Switzerland, and the third sub-lineage (B.1.255) correspond to the USA. Collectively, our study provides meaningful insight into the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 lineages in spatio-temporal local transmission during the first wave of the pandemic.

genomics↗

bioRxiv2017

Sugar intake elicits a small-scale search behavior in flies and honey bees that involves capabilities found in large-scale navigation

Social insects, particularly bees and ants, show exceptional large-scale navigational skills to find and carry back food to their nests. Honey bees further evolved a symbolic communication to direct nest mates to attractive food sources. Till now it is unclear how these capabilities evolved. Sixty years ago, Vincent Dethier demonstrated that a small-scale sugar-elicited search behavior identified in flies shows remarkable similarities with honey bee dance behavior. Those findings suggested that both behaviors are based on common mechanisms and are likely evolutionary related. We now present for the first time a detailed comparison of the sugar-elicited search behavior in Drosophila melanogaster and Apis mellifera. In both species, intake of sugar elicits a complex of searching responses. The most obvious response was an increase in turning frequency, but more importantly we found that flies and honey bees returned to the location of the sugar drop. They even returned to the food location when we prevented them from using visual and chemosensory cues indicating that this small scale local search involves path integration mechanisms. Finally, we show that visual landmarks presented in the vicinity of the sugar drop affected the search trajectory and in honey bees the sugar intake induced learning of landmarks. Together, our experiments indicate that the sugar-elicited local search exhibits two major behavioral capabilities of large-scale navigation, path integration and landmark orientation.\n\nSignificance StatementTo search for food social insects evolved sophisticated strategies of spatial orientation and large-scale navigation. We now show that even a small-scale local search behavior in solitary flies and social honey bees involves path integration and landmark learning two major mechanisms of large-scale navigation. We propose that in the future sugar-elicited local search can be used to identify neural circuits involved in navigation, path integration, and landmark learning.

animal behavior and cognition↗