Scientists Show That Woodpeckers’ Regaining Sweet Taste

A sweet tooth is a trait shared by many mammals, but birds' sweet receptor was lost during evolution.

It is unclear how other birds perceive sweetness, despite the fact that hummingbirds and songbirds independently repurposed their savory receptor to feel sweets.

Woodpeckers have regained their sweet taste, according to new research by an international team led by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence.

By making a small but unexpected alteration to the receptor, the specialized ant-eating woodpeckers known as wrynecks were able to selectively reverse this gain.

These findings highlight how sensory systems can change in response to the dietary requirements of various species and show a novel mechanism of sensory reversion.

Woodpeckers' sweet tooth

(Photo : Hans Veth/Unsplash)

A portion of the sweet receptor seen in mammals is absent in birds, who are the offspring of carnivorous dinosaurs, as per Sciencedaily.

They should no longer be sensitive to sugar as a result.

But according to recent research, both hummingbirds and songbirds have rediscovered the ability to taste sugar by adapting their savory receptor to now detect carbs in fruits and nectar.

It is uncertain how other birds perceive carbohydrates and how closely taste receptor responses reflect the enormous dietary diversity of birds.

Julia Cramer and Maude Baldwin of the Research Group Evolution of Sensory Systems and associates from various universities concentrated on woodpeckers to answer this question.

Although largely insectivorous, this group of birds also includes several species that consume fruits, sap, and nectar that are high in sugar.

Baldwin's team demonstrated that woodpeckers unmistakably prefer sugar and amino acids over water using behavioral experiments on wild birds.

Unexpectedly, wrynecks, a species of woodpecker whose diet consists nearly entirely of ants, showed preferences for amino acids but not for carbohydrates.

Baldwin summarized, "Our next question was whether the birds' receptors mirrored the observed sugar preference.

Also Read: Experts Suggest Extinct Ivory-Billed Woodpecker Still Populate Remote Forests

A sugar receptor existed in a common ancestor

The taste buds of the woodpecker and the vertices both have sugar-sensitive receptors, according to the functional study of taste buds, as per Newsacheive.com.

It's interesting to note that the ancestral reconstruction revealed that the wryneck and woodpecker's shared ancestor already had a modified taste bud that could react to sugars.

According to Kramer, the study's first author, this finding establishes the third instance of autonomous evolution of sugar perception through taste receptor alteration in birds.

Even more intriguingly, the vertices subsequently lost their ability to operate as the new receptor.

Unexpectedly, Cramer's detailed examination of the distinctions between the verchicol and woodpecker receptors revealed that a single amino acid change in the vermiform receptor shut off sugar sensitivity in a sugar-sensing manner.

These findings show the evolution of sugar perception in woodpeckers, which may have increased early on and then reversed when the torticollis receptor was subsequently altered.

This increase in sugar perception may have originated in an earlier ancestor, making it older than the woodpeckers themselves.

The scientists were shocked to see that this reversal was brought on by modifications in only one amino acid, which functions as a molecular switch to regulate sugar sensitivity in verticillians, Cramer said.

An unanticipated outcome of this minor modification is that the verticols are once again unable to detect sugar in their meal, but they still have the receptors' capacity to gather data regarding the presence of specific amino acids.

When ants make up the majority of your diet, this makes a lot of sense.