Queen signals in a stingless bee: suppression of worker ovary activation and spatial distribution of active compounds

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

In most species of social insect the queen signals her presence to her workers via pheromones. Worker responses to queen pheromones include retinue formation around the queen, inhibition of queen cell production and suppression of worker ovary activation. Here we show that the queen signal of the Brazilian stingless bee Friesella schrottkyi is a mixture of cuticular hydrocarbons. Stingless bees are therefore similar to ants, wasps and bumble bees, but differ from honey bees in which the queen's signal mostly comprises volatile compounds originating from the mandibular glands. This shows that cuticular hydrocarbons have independently evolved as the queen's signal across multiple taxa, and that the honey bees are exceptional. We also report the distribution of four active queen-signal compounds by Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) imaging. The results indicate a relationship between the behavior of workers towards the queen and the likely site of secretion of the queen's pheromones.

Related collections

Most cited references 11

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Conserved class of queen pheromones stops social insect workers from reproducing.

Annette Van Oystaeyen, Johan Billen, Tereza Oliveira … (2014)

A major evolutionary transition to eusociality with reproductive division of labor between queens and workers has arisen independently at least 10 times in the ants, bees, and wasps. Pheromones produced by queens are thought to play a key role in regulating this complex social system, but their evolutionary history remains unknown. Here, we identify the first sterility-inducing queen pheromones in a wasp, bumblebee, and desert ant and synthesize existing data on compounds that characterize female fecundity in 64 species of social insects. Our results show that queen pheromones are strikingly conserved across at least three independent origins of eusociality, with wasps, ants, and some bees all appearing to use nonvolatile, saturated hydrocarbons to advertise fecundity and/or suppress worker reproduction. These results suggest that queen pheromones evolved from conserved signals of solitary ancestors.

0 comments Cited 119 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

The effect of queen pheromones on worker honey bee ovary development.

Shelley Hoover, Christopher I. Keeling, Mark Winston … (2003)

We report results that address a long-standing controversy in honey bee biology, the identity of the queen-produced compounds that inhibit worker honey bee ovary development. As the honey bee is the only organism for which identities have been proposed for any pheromone that regulates reproduction, the resolution of its identity is of broad significance. We examined the effects of synthetic honey bee queen mandibular pheromone (QMP), four newly identified queen retinue pheromone components, and whole-queen extracts on the ovary development of caged worker bees. The newly identified compounds did not inhibit worker ovary development alone, nor did they improve the efficacy of QMP when applied in combination. QMP was as effective as queen extracts at ovary regulation. Caged workers in the QMP and queen extract treatments had better developed ovaries than did workers remaining in queenright colonies. We conclude that QMP is responsible for the ovary-regulating pheromonal capability of queens from European-derived Apis mellifera subspecies.

0 comments Cited 96 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

New components of the honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) queen retinue pheromone.

Keith Slessor, R Winston, H Higo … (2003)

The honey bee queen produces pheromones that function in both releaser and primer roles such as attracting a retinue of workers around her, attracting drones on mating flights, preventing workers from reproducing at the individual (worker egg-laying) and colony (swarming) level, and regulating several other aspects of colony functioning. The queen mandibular pheromone (QMP), consisting of five synergistic components, is the only pheromone chemically identified in the honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) queen, but this pheromone does not fully duplicate the pheromonal activity of a full queen extract. To identify the remaining unknown compounds for retinue attraction, honey bee colonies were selectively bred to have low response to synthetic QMP and high response to a queen extract in a laboratory retinue bioassay. Workers from these colonies were then used in the bioassay to guide the isolation and identification of the remaining active components. Four new compounds were identified from several glandular sources that account for the majority of the difference in retinue attraction between synthetic QMP and queen extract: methyl (Z)-octadec-9-enoate (methyl oleate), (E)-3-(4-hydroxy-3-methoxyphenyl)-prop-2-en-1-ol (coniferyl alcohol), hexadecan-1-ol, and (Z9,Z12,Z15)-octadeca-9,12,15-trienoic acid (linolenic acid). These compounds were inactive alone or in combination, and they only elicited attraction in the presence of QMP. There was still unidentified activity remaining in the queen extract. The queen therefore produces a synergistic, multiglandular pheromone blend of at least nine compounds for retinue attraction, the most complex pheromone blend known for inducing a single behavior in any organism.

0 comments Cited 48 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

All references

Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Sci Rep

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Sci Rep

Title: Scientific Reports

Publisher: Nature Publishing Group

ISSN (Electronic): 2045-2322

Publication date (Electronic): 12 December 2014

Publication date Collection: 2014

Volume: 4

Electronic Location Identifier: 7449

Affiliations

[1 ]NPPNS, Departamento de Física e Química , FCFRP, Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil

[2 ]Departamento de Biologia, FFCLRP, Universidade de São Paulo , Brazil

[3 ]Departamento de Entomologia e Acarologia, ESALQ, Universidade de São Paulo , Brazil

[4 ]School of Biological Sciences A12, University of Sydney , NSW 2006, Australia

Author notes

[a ] tulionunes@ 123456usp.com

[b ] npelopes@ 123456fcfrp.usp.br

Article

Publisher Item ID: srep07449

DOI: 10.1038/srep07449

PMC ID: 4264003

PubMed ID: 25502598

SO-VID: 24011764-3d23-42a5-881b-beb19a43a02f

License:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder in order to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Queen signals in a stingless bee: suppression of worker ovary activation and spatial distribution of active compounds

Read this article at

Abstract

Related collections

Active Travel Studies

Most cited references 11

Conserved class of queen pheromones stops social insect workers from reproducing.

The effect of queen pheromones on worker honey bee ovary development.

New components of the honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) queen retinue pheromone.

Author and article information

Journal

Affiliations

Author notes

Article

History

Categories

Comments

Comment on this article

Similar content 531

Cited by 24

Most referenced authors 116