Social and sexual behaviors in C. elegans: the first fifty years

Abstract

For the first 25 years after the landmark 1974 paper that launched the field, most C. elegans biologists were content to think of their subjects as solitary creatures. C. elegans presented no shortage of fascinating biological problems, but some of the features that led Brenner to settle on this species—in particular, its free-living, self-fertilizing lifestyle—also seemed to reduce its potential for interesting social behavior. That perspective soon changed, with the last two decades bringing remarkable progress in identifying and understanding the complex interactions between worms. The growing appreciation that C. elegans behavior can only be meaningfully understood in the context of its ecology and evolution ensures that the coming years will see similarly exciting progress.

Keywords:

• C. elegans
• social behavior
• sexual behavior
• pheromones

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Jagan Srinivasan, as well as the anonymous reviewers, for feedback that improved this Perspective.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Research in the author’s laboratory is  financially supported by National Institute of General Medical Sciences the NIH [R01 GM108885, R01 GM130136].