Juvenile hormone levels reflect social opportunities in the facultatively eusocial sweat bee Megalopta genalis (Hymenoptera: Halictidae)

Smith, Adam R.; Kapheim, Karen M.; Perez-Ortega, Betzi; Brent, Colin S.; Wcislo, William T.

doi:10.1016/j.yhbeh.2012.08.012

Cited by 43 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…With regard to caste origins, the co-option of an ancestral solitary ground plan for regulating maturational behaviors and physiologies among members of caste-based insect societies is well supported (West-Eberhard, 1996; Amdam et al, 2006;Tibbetts et al, 2011a;Smith et al, 2013;Tibbetts et al, 2013), although specific hypotheses will require more studies on the appropriate solitary hymenopterans (West-Eberhard, 1987;West-Eberhard, 1996). But what accounts for the remarkable divergence in the endocrine profiles of Polistes and Polybia, along with the parallel departures of hormone function between bumble bees and highly eusocial swarm-founding bees (Hartfelder et al, 2006), remains a challenging question.…”

Section: Shared and Divergent Patterns Of Endocrine Activity In Sociamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Also, swarm founding has independently evolved in two genera of Old World wasps, making it feasible to test whether specific changes (or conservation) of hormone functions in socially advanced groups are due to lineage-specific peculiarities or are indeed correlates of more complex societies. Furthermore, the finding that morphologically distinct castes have evolved several times independently in the Epiponini, ranging from subtle to very conspicuous differences (Noll and Wenzel, 2008), makes possible comparative intra-genus studies of how endocrine-mediated caste differentiation may have shifted developmentally from the imaginal to the pre-imaginal stage, and also how the roles of hormones changed in adults once castes became pre-imaginally fixed.With regard to caste origins, the co-option of an ancestral solitary ground plan for regulating maturational behaviors and physiologies among members of caste-based insect societies is well supported (West-Eberhard, 1996; Amdam et al, 2006;Tibbetts et al, 2011a;Smith et al, 2013;Tibbetts et al, 2013), although specific hypotheses will require more studies on the appropriate solitary hymenopterans (West-Eberhard, 1987;West-Eberhard, 1996). But what accounts for the remarkable divergence in the endocrine profiles of Polistes and Polybia, along with the parallel departures of hormone function between bumble bees and highly eusocial swarm-founding bees (Hartfelder et al, 2006), remains a challenging question.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Reproductive status, endocrine physiology and chemical signaling in the Neotropical, swarm-founding eusocial wasp,Polybia micansDucke (Vespidae: Epiponini)

Kelstrup

Hartfelder

Nascimento

et al. 2014

Journal of Experimental Biology

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In the evolution of caste-based societies in Hymenoptera, the classical insect hormones juvenile hormone (JH) and ecdysteroids were co-opted into new functions. Social wasps, which show all levels of sociality and lifestyles, are an ideal group in which to study such functional changes. Virtually all studies on the physiological mechanisms underlying reproductive division of labor and caste functions in wasps have been done on independent-founding paper wasps, and the majority of these studies have focused on species specially adapted for overwintering. The relatively little-studied tropical swarm-founding wasps of the Epiponini (Vespidae) are a diverse group of permanently social wasps, with some species maintaining caste flexibility well into the adult phase. We investigated the behavior, reproductive status, JH and ecdysteroid titers in hemolymph, ecdysteroid content of the ovary and cuticular hydrocarbon (CHC) profiles in the caste-monomorphic, epiponine wasp Polybia micans Ducke. We found that the JH titer was not elevated in competing queens from established multiple-queen nests, but increased in lone queens that lack direct competition. In queenless colonies, JH titer rose transiently in young potential reproductives upon challenge by nestmates, suggesting that JH may prime the ovaries for further development. Ovarian ecdysteroids were very low in workers but higher and correlated with the number of vitellogenic oocytes in the queens. Hemolymph ecdysteroid levels were low and variable in both workers and queens. Profiles of P. micans CHCs reflected caste, age and reproductive status, but were not tightly linked to either hormone. These findings show a significant divergence in hormone function in swarm-founding wasps compared with independently founding ones. KEY WORDS: Challenge hypothesis, Cuticular hydrocarbons, Ecdysteroids, Epiponini, Juvenile hormone, Polistes INTRODUCTIONEusocial insects within the order Hymenoptera (bees, wasps and ants) are characterized by the production of distinct phenotypes (caste polyphenism) in the female sex: the queen, the worker and often additional physiologically or morphologically specialized types within the worker caste (Wilson, 1971;Hunt, 2006;Hunt et al., 2007;Robinson, 2009;Tibbetts and Izzo, 2009;Shukla et al., 2013). In most caste-based societies the development of such specialized phenotypes is induced or at least biased in a pre-imaginal stage, where qualitative or quantitative differences in diet, pheromonal signals, mechanical stimuli or other environmental cues trigger endogenous signaling cascades toward alternative developmental trajectories (Wilson, 1971; Chavarría-Pizarro and West-Eberhard, 2010;Suryanarayanan et al., 2011;Hartfelder and Emlen, 2012;Penick and Liebig, 2012). As with most polyphenisms in insects, juvenile hormone (JH) and ecdysteroids were co-opted to orchestrate distinct ontogenetic pathways on top of their wellconserved role in regulating the episodic, molt-based growth events in immature animals (Hartfelder and Emlen, 2012)....

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Section: Shared and Divergent Patterns Of Endocrine Activity In Sociamentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Reproductive status, endocrine physiology and chemical signaling in the Neotropical, swarm-founding eusocial wasp,Polybia micansDucke (Vespidae: Epiponini)

Kelstrup

Hartfelder

Nascimento

et al. 2014

Journal of Experimental Biology

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“…Eusocial and solitary nests of M. genalis co-occur throughout the dry season on Barro Colorado Island (BCI), Panama [14,15]. Eusocial nests are characterized by a strict division of labour: workers forage, feed their queens through trophallaxis, do not typically mate or lay eggs and have lower levels of juvenile hormone and the yolk precursor protein vitellogenin, which are associated with reproductive status [14,[16][17][18][19]. Among successful foundresses, 34.5% produce only sons in their first brood, despite having mated, and remain solitary without workers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Kinship, parental manipulation and evolutionary origins of eusociality

et al. 2015

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One of the hallmarks of eusociality is that workers forego their own reproduction to assist their mother in raising siblings. This seemingly altruistic behaviour may benefit workers if gains in indirect fitness from rearing siblings outweigh the loss of direct fitness. If worker presence is advantageous to mothers, however, eusociality may evolve without net benefits to workers. Indirect fitness benefits are often cited as evidence for the importance of inclusive fitness in eusociality, but have rarely been measured in natural populations. We compared inclusive fitness of alternative social strategies in the tropical sweat bee, Megalopta genalis, for which eusociality is optional. Our results show that workers have significantly lower inclusive fitness than females that found their own nests. In mathematical simulations based on M. genalis field data, eusociality cannot evolve with reduced intra-nest relatedness. The simulated distribution of alternative social strategies matched observed distributions of M. genalis social strategies when helping behaviour was simulated as the result of maternal manipulation, but not as worker altruism. Thus, eusociality in M. genalis is best explained through kin selection, but the underlying mechanism is likely maternal manipulation.

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“…One of the best studied examples for a non-gonadotropin function in adult insects is the Western honeybee (Apis mellifera), in which JH does not affect adult female oogenesis but rather regulates age-related division of labor (Reviewed in Bloch et al, 2002;Hartfelder, 2000;Robinson and Vargo, 1997;Wegener et al, 2013). This findings for the honeybee contrast with evidence that JH retains its ancestral gonadotropic functions in species of bees and wasps that live in solitary lifestyle or in small and simple societies (Bell, 1973;Bloch et al, , 1996Chen et al, 1979;Pan and Wyatt, 1971;Shorter and Tibbetts, 2009;Shpigler et al, 2014;Smith et al, 2013;Wasielewski et al, 2011). These observations led to hypotheses stating that the evolution of advanced sociality in bees was associated with modification in JH signaling pathways (Bloch G, Wheeler DE, 2002;Hartfelder K, 1998;Robinson and Vargo, 1997;West-Eberhard, 1996).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Juvenile hormone interacts with multiple factors to modulate aggression and dominance in groups of orphan bumble bee (Bombus terrestris) workers

Pandey

Motro

Bloch

2019

Preprint

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Juvenile hormone (JH) is a key regulator of insect development and reproduction. Given that JH commonly affects adult insect fertility, it has been hypothesized to also regulate behaviors such as dominance and aggression that are associated with reproduction. We tested this hypothesis in the bumble bee Bombus terrestris for which JH has been shown to be the major gonadotropin. We used the allatoxin Precocene-I (P-I) to reduce hemolymph JH titers and replacement therapy with the natural JH to revert this effect. In small orphan groups of workers with similar body size but mixed treatment, P-I treated bees showed lower aggressiveness, oogenesis, and dominance rank compared with control and replacement therapy treated bees. In similar groups in which all bees were treated similarly, there was a clear dominance hierarchy, even in P-I and replacement therapy treatment groups in which the bees showed similar levels of ovarian activation. In a similar experiment in which bees differed in body size, larger bees were more likely to be dominant despite their similar JH treatment and ovarian state. In the last experiment, we show that JH manipulation does not affect dominance rank in groups that had already established a stable dominance hierarchy. These findings solve previous ambiguities concerning whether or not JH affects dominance in bumble bees. JH positively affects dominance, but bees with similar levels of JH can nevertheless establish dominance hierarchies. Thus, multiple factors including JH, body size, and previous experience affect dominance and aggression in social bumble bees.

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Juvenile hormone levels reflect social opportunities in the facultatively eusocial sweat bee Megalopta genalis (Hymenoptera: Halictidae)

Cited by 43 publications

References 27 publications

Reproductive status, endocrine physiology and chemical signaling in the Neotropical, swarm-founding eusocial wasp,Polybia micansDucke (Vespidae: Epiponini)

Reproductive status, endocrine physiology and chemical signaling in the Neotropical, swarm-founding eusocial wasp,Polybia micansDucke (Vespidae: Epiponini)

Kinship, parental manipulation and evolutionary origins of eusociality

Juvenile hormone interacts with multiple factors to modulate aggression and dominance in groups of orphan bumble bee (Bombus terrestris) workers

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