Behavioral differentiation among workers may reduce reproductive conflicts during colony inheritance in the termite Reticulitermes labralis

Bai, Zhuangdong; Liu, Yibin; Sillam‐Dussès, David; Wang, Ruiwu

doi:10.1007/s00040-022-00862-8

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…Therefore, higher levels of CHC complexity in taxa with intermediate to low levels of sociality in accordance with honest signaling in reproductive conflicts would impede cheaters to exploit this communication system (Nehring & Steiger, 2018 ; Queller & Strassmann, 2009 ). However, at least for termites, reproductive conflicts have generally been found to be quite low compared to social Hymenoptera (Bai et al., 2022 ; Hoffmann & Korb, 2011 ; Sun et al., 2020 ). Since we also did not find a consistently reversed pattern of higher CHC complexity in low sociality termites or solitary cockroaches as opposed to the more socially complex termites, this hypothesis is unlikely to explain the CHC diversification in our studied taxa.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chemical and transcriptomic diversity do not correlate with ascending levels of social complexity in the insect order Blattodea

Golian,

Friedman,

Harrison

et al. 2024

Ecology and Evolution

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Eusocial insects, such as ants and termites, are characterized by high levels of coordinated social organization. This is contrasted by solitary insects that display more limited forms of collective behavior. It has been hypothesized that this gradient in sociobehavioral sophistication is positively correlated with chemical profile complexity, due to a potentially increased demand for diversity in chemical communication mechanisms in insects with higher levels of social complexity. However, this claim has rarely been assessed empirically. Here, we compare different levels of chemical and transcriptomic complexity in selected species of the order Blattodea that represent different levels of social organization, from solitary to eusocial. We primarily focus on cuticular hydrocarbon (CHC) complexity, since it has repeatedly been demonstrated that CHCs are key signaling molecules conveying a wide variety of chemical information in solitary as well as eusocial insects. We assessed CHC complexity and divergence between our studied taxa of different social complexity levels as well as the differentiation of their respective repertoires of CHC biosynthesis gene transcripts. Surprisingly, we did not find any consistent pattern of chemical complexity correlating with social complexity, nor did the overall chemical divergence or transcriptomic repertoire of CHC biosynthesis genes reflect on the levels of social organization. Our results challenge the assumption that increasing social complexity is generally reflected in more complex chemical profiles and point toward the need for a more cautious and differentiated view on correlating complexity on a chemical, genetic, and social level.

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