Insect lifestyle and evolution of brain morphology

• Published in: Current opinion in insect science Vol. 42; pp. 90 - 96
• Main Authors: Bouchebti, Sofia, Arganda, Sara
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier Inc 01.12.2020
• ISSN: 2214-5745; 2214-5753; 2214-5745
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cois.2020.09.012

•Insect lifestyles often correlate with variation in different regions of their brain.•Co-option and subtle tuning of brain structures might mask neural adaptations.•Current methodological advances will reveal subtle brain adaptations to lifestyle.•Stronger evidence will come from comparative works informed by lifestyle features. Insect lifestyles are extremely diversified and have important consequences for brain function. Lifestyle determines the resources and information that brains might access and also those that are required to produce adaptive behaviors. Most of the observed adaptations in brain morphology to variation in lifestyle are related to the first stages of sensory information processing (e.g. adaptations to diel habits). However, morphological signatures of lifestyles related to higher order processing of information are more difficult to demonstrate. Co-option of existing neural structures for new behaviors might hinder the detection of morphological changes at a large scale. Current methodological advances will make it possible to investigate finer structural changes (e.g. variation in the connectivity between neurons) and might shed light on whether or not some lifestyles (e.g. eusociality) require morphological adaptations.