Oi Cintia A, Van Oystaeyen Annette, Caliari Oliveira Ricardo, Millar Jocelyn G, Verstrepen Kevin J, van Zweden Jelle S, Wenseleers Tom
Laboratory of Socioecology and Social Evolution, KU Leuven, Naamsestraat 59, 3000 Leuven, Belgium.
Laboratory of Socioecology and Social Evolution, KU Leuven, Naamsestraat 59, 3000 Leuven, Belgium.
Curr Biol. 2015 Jun 15;25(12):1638-40. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2015.04.040. Epub 2015 May 7.
Eusocial insects exhibit a remarkable reproductive division of labor between queens and largely sterile workers [1, 2]. Recently, it was shown that queens of diverse groups of social insects employ specific, evolutionarily conserved cuticular hydrocarbons to signal their presence and inhibit worker reproduction [3]. Workers also recognize and discriminate between eggs laid by the queen and those laid by workers, with the latter being destroyed by workers in a process known as "policing" [4, 5]. Worker policing represents a classic example of a conflict-reducing mechanism, in which the reproductive monopoly of the queen is maintained through the selective destruction of worker-laid eggs [5, 6]. However, the exact signals used in worker policing have thus far remained elusive [5, 7]. Here, we show that in the common wasp, Vespula vulgaris, the pheromone that signals egg maternity and enables the workers to selectively destroy worker-laid eggs is in fact the same as one of the sterility-inducing queen signals that we identified earlier [3]. These results imply that queen pheromones regulate insect sociality in two distinct and complementary ways, i.e., by signaling the queen's presence and inhibiting worker reproduction, and by facilitating the recognition and policing of worker-laid eggs.
群居昆虫在蚁后和大多不育的工蚁之间表现出显著的繁殖分工[1,2]。最近研究表明，不同种类群居昆虫的蚁后会分泌特定的、具有进化保守性的表皮碳氢化合物来表明自身存在并抑制工蚁繁殖[3]。工蚁也能够识别并区分蚁后产的卵和工蚁产的卵，后者会在一个被称为“监督”的过程中被工蚁破坏[4,5]。工蚁监督是减少冲突机制的一个典型例子，通过选择性地破坏工蚁产的卵来维持蚁后的繁殖垄断[5,6]。然而，迄今为止，工蚁监督中使用的确切信号仍然难以捉摸[5,7]。在此，我们表明，在普通黄蜂（Vespula vulgaris）中，表明卵的母系身份并使工蚁能够选择性地破坏工蚁产的卵的信息素，实际上与我们之前鉴定出的一种诱导不育的蚁后信号相同[3]。这些结果表明，蚁后信息素以两种不同但互补的方式调节昆虫的社会性，即通过表明蚁后的存在并抑制工蚁繁殖，以及通过促进对工蚁产的卵的识别和监督。
