Veiga Jamille Costa, Menezes Cristiano, Contrera Felipe Andrés León
Laboratório de Biologia e Ecologia de Abelhas, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal do Pará, Rua Augusto Corrêa 01, Campus Básico, Belém, Pará, 66075-110, Brazil.
Laboratório de Botânica, Embrapa Amazônia Oriental, Travessa Enéas Pinheiro, s/n; PO. 18, Belém, Pará, 66095-100, Brazil.
Naturwissenschaften. 2017 Apr;104(3-4):31. doi: 10.1007/s00114-017-1450-z. Epub 2017 Mar 15.
The attraction of sexual partners is a vital necessity among insects, and it involves conflict of interests and complex communication systems among male and female. In this study, we investigated the developing of sexual attractiveness in virgin queens (i.e., gynes) of Melipona flavolineata, an eusocial stingless bee. We followed the development of sexual attractiveness in 64 gynes, belonging to seven age classes (0, 3, 6, 9, 15, 18 days post-emergence), and we also evaluated the effect of different social interactions (such as competition between queens and interactions with workers) on the development of attractiveness in other 60 gynes. We used the number of males that tried to mate with a focal gyne as a representative variable of its sexual attractiveness. During the essays, each gyne was individually presented to 10 sexually mature males, and during 3 min, we counted the number of males that everted their genitalia in response to the presence of a gyne. Here, we show that M. flavolineata gynes are capable to (i) maintain their sexual attractiveness for long periods through adult life, (ii) they need a minimum social interaction to trigger the development of sexual attractiveness, and (iii) that gynes express this trait only within a social context. We conclude that the effective occurrence of matings is conditional on potential social interactions that gynes experienced before taking the nuptial flight, when they are still in the nest. These findings bring insights into the factors determining reproductive success in social insects.
对性伴侣的吸引在昆虫中是至关重要的需求，这涉及到雄性和雌性之间的利益冲突以及复杂的通讯系统。在本研究中，我们调查了黄纹无刺蜂（Melipona flavolineata）未交配蜂王（即雌蜂）性吸引力的发展情况。我们跟踪了64只属于七个年龄组（羽化后0、3、6、9、15、18天）的雌蜂性吸引力的发展，并且我们还评估了不同社会互动（如蜂王之间的竞争以及与工蜂的互动）对另外60只雌蜂吸引力发展的影响。我们将试图与受试雌蜂交配的雄蜂数量作为其性吸引力的代表性变量。在实验过程中，每只雌蜂单独被呈现给10只性成熟雄蜂，在3分钟内，我们统计因雌蜂在场而外翻生殖器的雄蜂数量。在此，我们表明黄纹无刺蜂雌蜂能够（i）在成年期长期保持其性吸引力，（ii）它们需要最少的社会互动来触发性吸引力的发展，以及（iii）雌蜂仅在社会环境中表现出这种特征。我们得出结论，交配的有效发生取决于雌蜂在进行婚飞之前、仍在巢中时所经历的潜在社会互动。这些发现为决定社会性昆虫繁殖成功的因素提供了见解。
