Larval Rearing Temperature Influences Amount and Composition of the Marking Pheromone of the Male Beewolf, Philanthus triangulum

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

Pheromones play an important role for courtship and mating in many insect species, and they are shaped by a complex interaction of genetic and environmental factors. Developmental temperature is known to have a strong influence on adult life history, morphology, and physiology, but little is known about its effect on pheromone characteristics. In the present study, the influence of temperature during larval development on the amount and composition of the complex marking pheromone from the cephalic glands of the adult male beewolf, Philanthus triangulum F. (Hymenoptera: Crabronidae), was investigated. Additionally, the effects of temperature on several life-history traits were examined. European beewolf larvae were reared at three constant temperatures (20, 25, and 30° C). Males reared at 20° C showed longer development times and higher mortality, suggesting that low temperatures constitute stressful conditions for developing larvae. After eclosion, the amount and composition of the scent marking secretion of the adult males was analyzed by coupled gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Males that had been reared at 20° C had significantly less secretion than individuals reared under warmer conditions (25° C and 30° C). Furthermore, larval rearing temperature had a significant effect on the composition of the adult males' pheromone gland content, with warmer rearing conditions leading to higher relative amounts of compounds with high molecular weight. The results show that the temperature during larval development significantly affected the amount and composition of the content of the male pheromone glands, probably due to physiological constraints and competing processes for limited energetic resources. Thus, the pheromone gland content may contain information on developmental conditions of males, which may have consequences for female mate choice decisions and male reproductive success.

Related collections

Most cited references 86

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

The role of chemical communication in mate choice.

Björn Johansson, Théresa Jones (2007)

Chemical signals are omnipresent in sexual communication in the vast majority of living organisms. The traditional paradigm was that their main purpose in sexual behaviour was to coordinate mate and species recognition and thus pheromones were conserved in structure and function. In recent years, this view has been challenged by theoretical analyses on the evolution of pheromones and empirical reports of mate choice based on chemical signals. The ability to measure precisely the quantity and quality of chemicals emitted by single individuals has also revealed considerable individual variation in chemical composition and release rates, and there is mounting evidence that prospecting mates respond to this variation. Here, we review the evidence for pheromones as indicators of mate quality and examine the extent of their use in individual mate assessment. We begin by briefly defining the levels of mate choice--species recognition, mate recognition and mate assessment. We then explore the degree to which pheromones satisfy the key criteria necessary for their evolution and maintenance as cues in mate assessment; that is, they should exhibit variation across individuals within a sex and species; they should honestly reflect an individual's quality and thus be costly to produce and/or maintain; they should display relatively high levels of heritability. There is now substantial empirical evidence that pheromones can satisfy all these criteria and, while measurements of the actual metabolic cost of pheromone production remain to some degree lacking, trade-offs between pheromone production and various fitness-related characters such as growth rate, immunocompetence and longevity have been reported for a range of species. In the penultimate section, we outline the growing number of studies where the consequences of chemical-based mate assessment have been investigated, specifically focussing on the reported direct and genetic benefits accrued by the receiver. Finally, we highlight potential areas for future research and in particular emphasise the need for interdisciplinary research that combines exploration of chemical, physiological and behavioural processes to further our understanding of the role of chemical cues in mate assessment.

0 comments Cited 156 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Insect pheromones--an overview of biosynthesis and endocrine regulation.

Julie Tillman, Steven J. Seybold, Russell Jurenka … (1999)

This overview describes, compares, and attempts to unify major themes related to the biosynthetic pathways and endocrine regulation of insect pheromone production. Rather than developing and dedicating an entirely unique set of enzymes for pheromone biosynthesis, insects appear to have evolved to add one or a few tissue-specific auxiliary or modified enzymes that transform the products of "normal" metabolism to pheromone compounds of high stereochemical and quantitative specificity. This general understanding is derived from research on model species from one exopterygote insect order (Blattodea) and three endopterygote insect orders (Coleoptera, Diptera, and Lepidoptera). For instance, the ketone hydrocarbon contact sex pheromone of the female German cockroach, Blattella germanica, derives its origins from fatty acid biosynthesis, arising from elongation of a methyl-branched fatty acyl-CoA moiety followed by decarboxylation, hydroxylation, and oxidation. Coleopteran sex and aggregation pheromones also arise from modifications of fatty acid biosynthesis or other biosynthetic pathways, such as the isoprenoid pathway (e.g. Cucujidae, Curculionidae, and Scolytidae), or from simple transformations of amino acids or other highly elaborated host precursors (e.g. Scarabaeidae and Scolytidae). Like the sex pheromone of B. germanica, female-produced dipteran (e.g. Drosophilidae and Muscidae) sex pheromone components originate from elongation of fatty acyl-CoA moieties followed by loss of the carbonyl carbon and the formation of the corresponding hydrocarbon. Female-produced lepidopteran sex pheromones are also derived from fatty acids, but many moths utilize a species-specific combination of desaturation and chain-shortening reactions followed by reductive modification of the carbonyl carbon. Carbon skeletons derived from amino acids can also be used as chain initiating units and elongated to lepidopteran pheromones by this pathway (e.g. Arctiidae and Noctuidae). Insects utilize at least three hormonal messengers to regulate pheromone biosynthesis. Blattodean and coleopteran pheromone production is induced by juvenile hormone III (JH III). In the female common house fly, Musca domestica, and possibly other species of Diptera, it appears that during hydrocarbon sex pheromone biosynthesis, ovarian-produced ecdysteroids regulate synthesis by affecting the activities of one or more fatty acyl-CoA elongation enzyme(s) (elongases). Lepidopteran sex pheromone biosynthesis is often mediated by a 33 or 34 amino acid pheromone biosynthesis activating neuropeptide (PBAN) through alteration of enzyme activities at one or more steps prior to or during fatty acid synthesis or during modification of the carbonyl group. Although a molecular level understanding of the regulation of insect pheromone biosynthesis is in its infancy, in the male California fivespined ips, Ips paraconfusus (Coleoptera: Scolytidae), JH III acts at the transcriptional level by increasing the abundance of mRNA for 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-CoA reductase, a key enzyme in de novo isoprenoid aggregation pheromone biosynthesis.

0 comments Cited 133 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Female sticklebacks count alleles in a strategy of sexual selection explaining MHC polymorphism.

P Aeschlimann, M Häberli, T C G Reusch … (2001)

The origin and maintenance of polymorphism in major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes in natural populations is still unresolved. Sexual selection, frequency-dependent selection by parasites and pathogens, and heterozygote advantage have been suggested to explain the maintenance of high allele diversity at MHC genes. Here we argue that there are two (non-exclusive) strategies for MHC-related sexual selection, representing solutions to two different problems: inbreeding avoidance and parasite resistance. In species prone to inadvertent inbreeding, partners should prefer dissimilar MHC genotypes to similar ones. But if the goal is to maximize the resistance of offspring towards potential infections, the choosing sex should prefer mates with a higher diversity of MHC alleles. This latter strategy should apply when there are several MHC loci, as is the case in most vertebrates. We tested the relative importance of an 'allele counting' strategy compared to a disassortative mating strategy using wild-caught three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) from an interconnected system of lakes. Here we show that gravid female fish preferred the odour of males with a large number of MHC class-IIB alleles to that of males with fewer alleles. Females did not prefer male genotypes dissimilar to their own.

0 comments Cited 114 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

All references

Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): J Insect Sci

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): J. Insect Sci

Journal ID (publisher-id): insc

Title: Journal of Insect Science

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Library

ISSN (Electronic): 1536-2442

Publication date Collection: 2010

Publication date (Electronic): 25 June 2010

Volume: 10

Electronic Location Identifier: 74

Affiliations

[ ¹ ]University of Regensburg, Department for Zoology, 93040 Regensburg, Germany

[ ² ]University of Würzburg, Department of Animal Ecology & Tropical Biology, 97074 Würzburg, Germany

[ ³ ]Present address: Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Research Group Insect Symbiosis, Hans-Knöll Strasse 8, 07745 Jena, Germany

Author notes

[*]Correspondence: [ ^a* ] Kerstin.Roeser-Mueller@ 123456biologie.uni-regensburg.de , [ ^b ] Erhard.Strohm@ 123456biologie.uni-regensburg.de , [ ^c ] mkaltenpoth@ 123456ice.mpg.de , [ ^* ]Corresponding author

Associate Editor: Todd Shelly was editor of this paper.

Article

DOI: 10.1673/031.010.7401

PMC ID: 3383414

PubMed ID: 20673192

SO-VID: d92a6633-a452-4c57-ba84-3714fed1cf41

License:

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

History

Date received : 23 October 2008

Date accepted : 22 January 2009

Page count

Pages: 16

Comments

Comment on this article

scite_

Cited by 2

See all cited by

Most referenced authors 259

See all reference authors

Larval Rearing Temperature Influences Amount and Composition of the Marking Pheromone of the Male Beewolf, Philanthus triangulum

Read this article at

Abstract

Related collections

Hymenoptera

Most cited references 86

The role of chemical communication in mate choice.

Insect pheromones--an overview of biosynthesis and endocrine regulation.

Female sticklebacks count alleles in a strategy of sexual selection explaining MHC polymorphism.

Author and article information

Journal

Affiliations

Author notes

Article

History

Page count

Categories

Comments

Comment on this article

Similar content 97

Cited by 2

Most referenced authors 259