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20 results for “queen pheromones”
Dataset for Identification of giant hornet, Vespa mandarinia, queen sex pheromone components
<p>The Vespidae are a diverse family of wasps and hornets that contain invasive species and are formidable predators of insects, including social bees. Recently, the world’s largest hornet, <em>Vespa mandarinia</em> Smith(Hymenoptera: Vespidae), which occurs naturally in the Indomalayan region, has been found in Canada and United States. Some simulations indicate it could rapidly spread throughout Washington, Oregon, and parts of the eastern USA, threaten native bees and honey bees, and harm bee-pollinated crop production worth nearly $12 million annually. There is consequently an urgent need to learn more about <em>V. mandarinia</em>’s reproductive biology and to develop trapping methods to locate its nests and control its reproduction. We identified <em>V. mandarinia</em> queen-produced sex pheromone from the 5<sup>th</sup> and 6<sup>th</sup> intersegmental sternal glands of virgin queens. The major active compounds were hexanoic acid (HA), octanoic acid (OA) and decanoic acid (DA). When placed in field traps, the synthetic compounds and a queen-equivalent mixture rapidly attracted hundreds of males. This dataset provides the data used in this paper.</p>
Pheromone relay networks in the honeybee: messenger workers distribute the queen's fertility signal throughout the hive
<p>This resource contains two items:</p><p>1. Dataset; Within-hive trajectories of individually-tagged honeybee workers.</p><p>2. Model; A C++ script for simulating queen pheromone transmission via physical contacts between bees. </p>
Identification of a queen pheromone mediating the rearing of adult sexuals in the pharaoh ant Monomorium pharaonis
<p>Division of labour between reproductive queens and mostly sterile workers is among the defining characteristics of social insects. Queen-produced chemical signals advertising her presence and fertility status, i.e. queen pheromones, are normally used to assert the queen's reproductive dominance in the colony. Most queen pheromones identified to date are chemicals that stop the daughter workers from reproducing. Nevertheless, it has long been suggested that queen pheromones could also regulate reproduction in different ways. In some multiple-queen ants with obligately sterile workers, for example – such as fire ants and pharaoh ants – queen pheromones are thought to regulate reproduction by inhibiting the rearing of new sexuals. Here we identify the first such queen pheromone in the pharaoh ant <i>Monomorium pharaonis </i>and demonstrate its mode of action via bioassays with the pure biosynthesized compound. In particular, we show that the monocyclic diterpene neocembrene, which in different <i>Monomorium</i> species is produced solely by fertile, egg-laying queens, strongly inhibits the rearing of new sexuals (queens and males) and also exerts a weakly attractive "queen retinue" effect on the workers. This is the first time that a queen pheromone with such a dual function has been identified in a social insect species with obligately sterile workers.</p>
Data from: Costs and constraints conspire to produce honest signalling: insights from an ant queen pheromone
Signal costs and evolutionary constraints have both been proposed as ultimate explanations for the ubiquity of honest signalling, but the interface between these two factors is unclear. Here, I propose a pluralistic interpretation, and use game theory to demonstrate that evolutionary constraints determine whether signals evolve to be costly or cheap. Specifically, when the costs or benefits of signalling are strongly influenced by the sender's quality, low-cost signals evolve. The model reaffirms that cheap and costly signals can both be honest, and predicts that expensive signals should have more positive allometric slopes than cheap ones. The new framework is applied to an experimental study of an ant queen pheromone that honestly signals fecundity. Juvenile hormone was found to have opposing, dose-dependent effects on pheromone production and fecundity and was fatal at high doses, indicating that endocrine-mediated trade-offs preclude dishonesty. Several lines of evidence suggest that the realised cost of pheromone production may be non-trivial, and the antagonistic effects of juvenile hormone indicate the presence of significant evolutionary constraints. I conclude that the honesty of queen pheromones and other signals is likely enforced by both the cost of dishonesty and a suite of evolutionary constraints.
Data from: The evolution of queen pheromones in the ant genus Lasius
Queen pheromones are among the most important chemical messages regulating insect societies yet they remain largely undiscovered, hindering research into interesting proximate and ultimate questions. Identifying queen pheromones in multiple species would give new insight into the selective pressures and evolutionary constraints acting on these ubiquitous signals. Here, we present experimental and phylogenetic evidence that 3-methylalkanes, hydrocarbons present on the queen's cuticle, are a queen pheromone throughout the ant genus Lasius. Phylogenetic analyses of the chemical profile imply that 3-methylalkanes evolve more slowly than other types of hydrocarbons, perhaps due to differential selection or evolutionary constraints. We argue that the sensory ecology of the worker response imposes strong stabilising selection on queen pheromones relative to other hydrocarbons. 3-methylalkanes are also strongly physiologically and genetically coupled with fecundity in at least one Lasius species, which may translate into evolutionary constraints. Our results highlight how honest signalling could minimise evolutionary conflict over reproduction, promoting the evolution and maintenance of eusociality.
Scores from S.invicta queen supergene pheromone discrimination assays
<p>Ants use chemical signals to communicate for various purposes related to colony function. Social organization in the red imported fire ant, <i>Solenopsis invicta</i>, is determined by the <i>Sb</i> supergene, with colonies of the monogyne (single-queen) form lacking the element and colonies of the polygyne (multiple-queen) form possessing it. Polygyne workers accept new reproductive queens in their nest, but only those carrying <i>Sb</i>; young winged queens lacking this genetic element are executed as they mature sexually in their natal nest or as they attempt to enter a foreign nest to initiate reproduction after mating and shedding their wings. It has been suggested that queen supergene genotype status is signaled to workers by unsaturated cuticular hydrocarbons, while queen reproductive status is signaled by piperidines (venom alkaloids). We used high-throughput behavioral assays to study worker acceptance of paper dummies dosed with fractions of extracts of polygyne queens, or blends of synthetic counterparts of queen cuticular compounds. We show that the queen supergene pheromone comprises a blend of monoene and diene unsaturated hydrocarbons. Our assays also reveal that unsaturated hydrocarbons elicit discrimination by polygyne workers only when associated with additional compounds that signal queen fertility. This synergistic effect was obtained with a polar fraction of queen extracts, but not by the piperidine alkaloids, suggesting that the chemical(s) indicating queen reproductive status are compounds more polar than cuticular hydrocarbons but are not the piperidine alkaloids. Our results advance understanding of the role of chemical signaling that is central to the regulation of social organization in an important invasive pest and model ant species.</p>
Data from: Costs and constraints conspire to produce honest signalling: insights from an ant queen pheromone
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Data from: Hungry for the queen: honeybee nutritional environment affects worker pheromone response in a life stage‐dependent manner
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Scores from S.invicta queen supergene pheromone discrimination assays
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Data from: The evolution of queen pheromones in the ant genus Lasius
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Identification of a queen pheromone mediating the rearing of adult sexuals in the pharaoh ant Monomorium pharaonis
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Queen pheromone modulates the expression of epigenetic modifier genes in the brain of honeybee workers
<p>Pheromones are used by many insects to mediate social interactions. In the highly eusocial honeybee (<i>Apis mellifera</i>) queen mandibular pheromone (QMP) is involved in the regulation of the reproductive and other behaviour of workers. The molecular mechanisms by which QMP acts are largely unknown. Here we investigate how genes responsible for epigenetic modifications to DNA, RNA and histones respond to the presence of QMP in the environment. We show that several of these genes are upregulated in the honeybee brain when workers are exposed to artificial QMP. We propose that pheromonal communication systems, such as those used by social insects, evolved to respond to environmental signals by making use of existing epigenomic machineries.</p>
Data from: Conserved class of queen pheromones stops social insect workers from reproducing
A major evolutionary transition to eusociality with reproductive division of labor between queens and workers has arisen independently at least 10 times in the ants, bees, and wasps. Pheromones produced by queens are thought to play a key role in regulating this complex social system, but their evolutionary history remains unknown. Here, we identify the first sterility-inducing queen pheromones in a wasp, bumblebee, and desert ant and synthesize existing data on compounds that characterize female fecundity in 64 species of social insects. Our results show that queen pheromones are strikingly conserved across at least three independent origins of eusociality, with wasps, ants, and some bees all appearing to use nonvolatile, saturated hydrocarbons to advertise fecundity and/or suppress worker reproduction. These results suggest that queen pheromones evolved from conserved signals of solitary ancestors.
Cross-activity of honeybee queen pheromones in bumblebees provides evidence for sensory exploitation
<p>The evolutionary origin of queen pheromones, which regulate reproductive division of labor in insect societies, has been explained by two evolutionary scenarios: the <i>sender-precursor hypothesis</i> and the <i>sensory exploitation hypothesis</i>. These scenarios differ in terms of whether the signaling system was built on preadaptations on the part of either the sender queens or the receiver workers. While some social insect queen pheromones – such as cuticular hydrocarbons – were likely derived from ancestral fertility cues and evolved according to the former theory, the honeybee's queen mandibular pheromone (QMP) has been suggested to act directly on pre-existing gene-regulatory networks linked with reproduction. This is evidenced by the fact that QMP has been shown to also inhibit ovary activation in fruit flies, thereby implying exploitation of conserved physiological pathways. To verify whether QMP has similar effects on more closely related eusocial species, we here tested for QMP cross-activity in the bumblebee <i>Bombus terrestris</i>. Interestingly, we found that the non-native QMP blend significantly inhibited egg-laying in both worker and queen bumblebees and caused accompanying shifts in ovary activation. The native bumblebee queen pheromone pentacosane, by contrast, only inhibited the reproduction of the workers. Overall, these findings support the hypothesis that honeybee QMP likely evolved via a route of sensory exploitation. We argue that such exploitation could allow social insect queens to produce compounds that manipulate the workers to remain sterile, but that a major hurdle would be that the queens themselves would have to be immune to such compounds.</p>
Data from: Queen pheromones modulate DNA methyltransferase activity in bee and ant workers
DNA methylation is emerging as an important regulator of polyphenism in the social insects. Research has concentrated on differences in methylation between queens and workers, though we hypothesized that methylation is involved in mediating other flexible phenotypes, including pheromone-dependent changes in worker behaviour and physiology. Here, we find that exposure to queen pheromone affects the expression of two DNA methyltransferase genes in Apis mellifera honeybees and in two species of Lasius ants, but not in Bombus terrestris bumblebees. These results suggest that queen pheromones influence the worker methylome, pointing to a novel proximate mechanism for these key social signals.
Data from: Queen pheromones modulate DNA methyltransferase activity in bee and ant workers
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Cross-activity of honeybee queen pheromones in bumblebees provides evidence for sensory exploitation
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Data from: Conserved class of queen pheromones stops social insect workers from reproducing
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Data from: Honeybees possess a structurally diverse and functionally redundant set of queen pheromones
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Queen pheromone modulates the expression of epigenetic modifier genes in the brain of honeybee workers
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