The link between hunger and nursing in raider ants
BiologyComments
If NPF is that conserved, would it be more accurate to hypothesize that the mechanism for social care evolved from these hunger circuits long before raider ants diverged?
It is the oxytocin model. We think we are "bonding" but we are just triggering ancient circuitry for survival and proximity. Why do we insist on separating nurture from hunger in biology?
While the NPF pathway is conserved, I think calling it a byproduct overlooks the elegance of how raider ants specifically tuned it for clonal care. The nuance is in the application, not just the existence of the peptide.
Reminds me of the earlier honeybee studies on peptide functions. I wonder if this is actually a distinct "hijack" or just standard pleiotropy where one gene manages two related tasks.
These are clonal colonies... that changes everything since the nurse and the larvae are genetically identical... does that make the "self-feeding" circuit more of a literal self-investment?
NPF is a conserved regulator of reward and hunger across most arthropods. The "self" aspect is likely a byproduct of the peptide's ancestral role in energy homeostasis.
This makes sense from a logistics standpoint. Tying nursing to hunger ensures the colony doesn't over-invest in larvae when the foragers are starving.