BackgroundAnimals use environmental information to make developmental decisions to maximise their fitness. The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans measures its environment to decide between arresting development as dauer larvae or continuing to grow and reproduce. Worms are thought to use ascarosides as signals of population density and this signalling is thought to be a species-wide honest signal. We compared recently wild C. elegans lines’ dauer larva arrest when presented with the same ascaroside signals and in different food environments.ResultsWe find that the hitherto canonical dauer larva response does not hold among these lines. Ascaroside molecules can, depending on the food environment, both promote and repress dauer larva formation. Further, these recently wild C. elegans lines also produce ascaroside mixtures that induce a wide diversity of dauer larva formation responses. We further find that the lines differ in the quantity and ratios of ascaroside molecules that they release. Some of the dauer larva formation responses are consistent with dishonest signalling.ConclusionsTogether, the results suggest that the idea that dauer larva formation is an honestly-signalled C. elegans-wide effect does not hold. Rather, the results suggest that ascaroside-based signalling is a public broadcast information system, but where the correct interpretation of that information depends on the worms’ context, and is a system open to dishonest signalling.

BackgroundAnimals use information from their environment to make decisions, ultimately to maximize their fitness. The nematode C. elegans has a pheromone signalling system, which hitherto has principally been thought to be used by worms in deciding whether or not to arrest their development as larvae. Recent studies have suggested that this pheromone can have other roles in the C. elegans life cycle.ResultsHere we demonstrate a new role for the C. elegans pheromone, showing that it accelerates hermaphrodites’ reproductive rate, a phenomenon which we call pheromone-dependent reproductive plasticity (PDRP). We also find that pheromone accelerates larval growth rates, but this depends on a live bacterial food source, while PDRP does not. Different C. elegans strains all show PDRP, though the magnitude of these effects differ among the strains, which is analogous to the diversity of arrested larval phenotypes that this pheromone also induces. Using a selection experiment we also show that selection for PDRP or for larval arrest affects both the target and the non-target trait, suggesting that there is cross-talk between these two pheromone-dependent traits.ConclusionsTogether, these results show that C. elegans’ pheromone is a signal that acts at two key life cycle points, controlling alternative larval fates and affecting adult hermaphrodites’ reproduction. More broadly, these results suggest that to properly understand and interpret the biology of pheromone signalling in C. elegans and other nematodes, the life-history biology of these organisms in their natural environment needs to be considered.

In a Plenary debate at the 51st Spring meeting of the British Society of Parasitology, Bristol, UK, April 8-11, 2013, the bioethicist James Wilson used the value of a life in the present and future to question the effectiveness of current health strategies.