Experience influences gustatory responsiveness to pyrrolizidine alkaloids in the polyphagous caterpillar, Estigmene acrea.

Electrophysiological recordings from taste sensilla of the caterpillar Estigmene acrea with the pyrrolizidine alkaloid, seneciphylline N-oxide, demonstrated that prior feeding on plants with pyrrolizidine alkaloids caused an increase in responsiveness of the PA-sensitive cells in two sensilla, relative to feeding on plants without such chemicals. Rearing on synthetic diet without pyrrolizidine alkaloids for up to seven generations caused a continuous decline in responsiveness, that could be reversed by experience with powdered Crotalaria pumila in the diet or by pure pyrrolizidine alkaloid, monocrotaline, in the diet. Response to the cardiac glycoside, ouabain, that stimulates one of the two pyrrolizidine alkaloid-sensitive cells, showed a similar decline. Pyrrolizidine alkaloids had no measurable effect on growth and development. Responses in all other taste cells were unaffected. The data are discussed in relation to the possible adaptive significance and the possible mechanisms involved.