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.

摘要

在 1974 年具有里程碑意义的论文启动该领域后的前 25 年里，大多数线虫生物学家满足于将他们的研究对象视为孤独的生物。C. elegans不乏引人入胜的生物学问题，但导致 Brenner 选择该物种的一些特征——尤其是其自由生活、自我受精的生活方式——似乎也降低了其有趣的社会行为的潜力。这种观点很快发生了变化，过去二十年在识别和理解蠕虫之间复杂的相互作用方面取得了显着进展。C. elegans越来越受到重视 行为只能在其生态和进化的背景下进行有意义的理解，确保未来几年将看到同样令人兴奋的进展。