Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, The Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel.
Adv Genet. 2012;77:1-32. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-12-387687-4.00001-5.
The diverse social lifestyle and the small and accessible nervous system of insects make them valuable for research on the adaptive value and the organization principles of circadian rhythms and sleep. We focus on two complementary model insects, the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, which is amenable to extensive transgenic manipulations, and the honey bee Apis mellifera, which has rich and well-studied social behaviors. Social entrainment of activity rhythms (social synchronization) has been studied in many animals. Social time givers appear to be specifically important in dark cavity-dwelling social animals, but here there are no other clear relationships between the degree of sociality and the effectiveness of social entrainment. The olfactory system is important for social entrainment in insects. Little is known, however, about the molecular and neuronal pathways linking olfactory neurons to the central clock. In the honey bee, the expression, phase, and development of circadian rhythms are socially regulated, apparently by different signals. Peripheral clocks regulating pheromone synthesis and the olfactory system have been implicated in social influences on circadian rhythms in the fruit fly. An enriched social environment increases the total amount of sleep in both fruit flies and honey bees. In fruit flies, these changes have been linked to molecular and neuronal processes involved in learning, memory, and synaptic plasticity. The studies on insects suggest that social influences on the clock are richer than previously appreciated and have led to important breakthroughs in our understanding of the mechanisms underlying social influences on sleep and circadian rhythms.
昆虫多样的社会生活方式和较小且易于接近的神经系统，使它们成为研究昼夜节律和睡眠的适应价值和组织原则的有价值模型。我们专注于两种互补的模式昆虫，即易于进行广泛的转基因操作的黑腹果蝇 Drosophila melanogaster，以及具有丰富且研究良好的社会行为的蜜蜂 Apis mellifera。活动节律的社交同步（社交同步）已在许多动物中进行了研究。在黑暗洞穴居住的社交动物中，似乎有特定的社交时间给予者特别重要，但在这些动物中，社交程度与社交同步的有效性之间没有其他明确的关系。嗅觉系统对昆虫的社交同步很重要。然而，关于将嗅觉神经元与中央时钟联系起来的分子和神经元途径知之甚少。在蜜蜂中，昼夜节律的表达、相位和发育受到社交调节，显然是通过不同的信号。调节信息素合成和嗅觉系统的外周时钟已被牵涉到果蝇中昼夜节律对社交的影响。丰富的社交环境会增加果蝇和蜜蜂的总睡眠时间。在果蝇中，这些变化与涉及学习、记忆和突触可塑性的分子和神经元过程有关。昆虫研究表明，对生物钟的社交影响比以前认识到的要丰富得多，并在我们对睡眠和昼夜节律的社交影响的机制的理解方面取得了重要突破。
