Model invertebrates

Harvester ants live in desert grasslands and eat seeds. Colonies manage water stress by regulating foraging using olfactory interactions between outgoing and returning foragers. A long-term study in New Mexico shows how this collective behavior is evolving in drought conditions.

Unbiased metabolomics revealed the conversion of serotonin into N-acetylserotonin-derived glucosides by an intestinal carboxylesterase in Caenorhabditis elegans, which suggests an unappreciated role of the gut in modulating 5-HT signaling.

Parhyale hawaiensis comes from tropical intertidal shores and mangroves. In research, it is used to explore topics ranging from embryonic development and regeneration, to tidal rhythms and environmental pollution.

Tardigrades are everywhere. They’re tiny — usually under a millimeter long — and they’re mostly transparent, so they’re easy to miss. But you probably walk by them every day. We’ve been grooming them as emerging models for studying how body forms evolve and how biological materials can survive extreme conditions.

In Caenorhabditis elegans, RNAi-initiated gene silencing can persist for multiple generations. A study shows that this heritable silencing requires parallel contributions of both a nuclear transcriptional silencing pathway and perinuclear condensate-localized poly(UG)-tailed transcripts to produce abundant germline siRNAs in adult progeny.