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Finally, we used the same primers for DNMDAR1 to demonstrate a fragment of putative NMDA receptor in the corpora allata of Diploptera punctata. Our results suggest that the NMDAR has a role in regulating JH synthesis and that ionotropic-subtype glutamate receptors became specialized early in animal evolution.

Juvenile hormone (JH) exerts major pleiotropic effects on cockroach development and reproduction. The production of JH by the corpora allata (CA) in the adult female German cockroach, Blattella germanica, is dependent upon and modulated by both internal and environmental stimuli. Mating, intake of highquality food, social interactions, and the presence of vitellogenic ovaries facilitate JH synthesis. Conversely, starvation, deficient diets, enforced virginity, isolation, and a pre-or post-vitellogenic ovary cause the CA to produce less JH. Sensory stimulation of the genital vestibulum by the ootheca also inhibits the CA via signals that ascend the ventral nerve cord. All these stimulatory and inhibitory signals are integrated by the brain, and a preponderance of favorable signals results in a graded lifting of brain inhibition, permitting the synthesis and release of JH. The effects of inhibitory signals on JH biosynthesis can be lifted experimentally by severing nervous connections between the brain and the CA. Such an operation accelerates activation of the CA.Besides controlling gonadal maturation in females, JH concurrently regulates the production of sexual signals, including both attractant-and courtship-eliciting pheromones, and the behavioral expression of calling (pheromone release) and sexual receptivity. Although JH is required for the expression of copulatory readiness in female B. germanica, it appears that signals associated with copulation (spermatophore, sperm, accessory secretions) can inhibit this behavioral state even when titers of JH are permissive for receptivity. These observations suggest that JH might regulate sexual receptivity in females indirectly through other directives. In males, JH accelerates not only the onset of sexual readiness but also synthesis of accessory reproductive products.Lastly, we present a novel cockroach control strategy that is based on the intimate association between food intake and rising JH titers in B. germanica females. JH analogs cause abortion of fertile oothecae in gravid females. In turn, rising JH titers and vitellogenic oocytes induce feeding in females. With strategic placement of insecticidal baits and JH analogs, gravid females, which normally feed little and are difficult to control, can thus be effectively targeted for elimination.

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Summary1. A possible adaptive benefit of coprophagy was investigated in nymphs of the German cockroach Blattella germanica (L.).2. Newly ecdysed first instars, given no source of food other than conspecific faeces, survived significantly longer than first instars deprived of faeces. The faeces of adult males and females may be of different quality, however, because nymphs given female faeces were more likely to moult into the second stadium than nymphs given male faeces.3. In contrast to first instars, second instars provided adult faeces survived only slightly longer than starved counterparts. Faecal feeding is therefore stage‐specific, as is the benefit derived from it.4. The relationship between the nutrient composition of faeces and the survival of nymphs was also examined. First instars fed the faeces of adults that had been maintained on a high (50%) protein diet, died more slowly than first instars fed the faeces of adults that had been maintained on medium (22.5%) and low (5%) protein diets. Chemical analysis of faeces showed that the concentration of protein in adult faeces increased with the level of protein in the diet. Moreover, food choice assays showed that first instars, unlike adults, ingested more of the high‐protein diets.5. These data support the idea that coprophagy is a stage‐specific adaptive behaviour that permits first instars to moult into the second stadium with minimal foraging.

Fipronil, a phenylpyrazole insecticide, was made available in 1999 in bait formulations for use against the German cockroach, Blattella germanica (L.). We have investigated resistance to fipronil in the descendants of cockroaches collected just before, or contemporaneously with, the introduction of fipronil baits. Cockroaches were obtained in two types of settings: homes that either had or had not been serviced by a pest management professional while occupied by their current residents. Thorough inspections by us turned up no evidence that fipronil had been used in any of the homes, and in addition, no residents claimed to have used baits containing fipronil. Resistance to fipronil was detected by topically dosing adult males with the LC99 of fipronil, the value of which was determined in a dose-response assay with males of an insecticide-susceptible strain. Fewer than 99 of 100 males of all field-collected strains died within 72 h of being treated. Moreover, substantial numbers of males survived doses three and 10-fold greater than the LC99. Regression analysis showed that 67% of the variation in the percentage of males that died after being treated with fipronil was explained by a linear relationship with the percentage that died after being treated with dieldrin. Therefore, it appears that resistance to fipronil in German cockroaches--whose ancestors had never been exposed to it--is attributable to enduring resistance to the cyclodienes, which were formerly used for cockroach control and have a similar mode of action as fipronil. Lastly, we found that insects resistant to topically administered fipronil were likewise resistant, and to a similar degree, to ingested fipronil.

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Maternal effects, crossgenerational influences of the mother's phenotype on phenotypic variation in offspring, can profoundly influence the fitness of offspring. In insects especially, social interactions during larval development also can alter life-history traits. To date, however, no experimental design, to our knowledge, has manipulated the prenatal and postnatal environments independently to investigate their interaction. We report here that the degree of maternal nutrient investment in developing embryos of the viviparous cockroach Diploptera punctata influences how quickly neonate males become adults and how large they are at adulthood. An offspring's probability of reaching adulthood in fewer than four molts increased with birth weight: the heavier neonates were, consequently, more likely to become smaller adults. Social interaction also affected nymphal development and adult size. Nymphs reared in pairs molted fewer times than solitary nymphs and, thus, became smaller adults. The social effect on developmental trajectory was, however, eliminated by experimentally increasing the level of maternal nutrient investment per offspring, which was accomplished by removing one of the female's paired ovaries (allometric engineering). We conclude that a particular prenatal environment can result in different offspring phenotypes under different postnatal social conditions. By investing more in each offspring, however, D. punctata mothers, because they are viviparous, are able to produce broods with environmentally (socially) independent phenotypes.