How to get rid of diploid bumblebee males – variability in wing size and shape does not allow within‐colony ploidy discrimination

Bogo, Gherardo; Cejas, Diego; Rúa, Pilar De la; Bortolotti, Laura

doi:10.1111/eea.13128

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…The precise mechanism preventing diploid male brood from developing into adults at the beginning of the colony cycle remains nevertheless an interesting topic for future studies. Some morphological traits can be used as diagnostics to differentiate diploid from haploid males of B. terrestris such as body size (Duchateau and Mariën, 1995;Gerloff et al, 2003) and the wing venation pattern (Gerard et al, 2015;Bortolotti et al, 2021;Bogo et al, 2022). Here, we show that their cuticular hydrocarbon profiles can also be used to reliably distinguish adult diploid and haploid B. terrestris males with an accuracy of 98%.…”

Section: Number Of Workers When the First Male Emergedmentioning

confidence: 78%

Distinct Colony Types Caused by Diploid Male Production in the Buff-Tailed Bumblebee Bombus terrestris

et al. 2022

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The buff-tailed bumblebee Bombus terrestris presents two distinct colony phenotypes in which some colonies already start producing males very early in the season, while others switch to producing sexuals much later in the season, and specialize mainly in the production of virgin queens. Despite having been extensively investigated in the past, the mechanisms underlying these two distinct phenotypes remain poorly understood. Here we use a combination of behavioral and genetic data to demonstrate that early switchers are in fact diploid male producing colonies, while late switchers produced normal, haploid males. Hence, at a proximate level, early switching to male production was caused by queens mating with males that by chance carried the same sex allele. These patterns were not the result of strong inbreeding within the study population, as the average inbreeding coefficient was very low and in fact slightly negative (−0.11). Moreover, an effect of inbreeding was further excluded because hybrids produced by crossing two distinct outbred populations also produced diploid males in early switching colonies. Finally, we found that diploid males only emerged after a first cohort of workers was produced, while we would have expected diploid males to be produced simultaneously with workers in a 50:50 ratio. We demonstrate that adult diploid males had a distinct cuticular hydrocarbon profile and propose that queens likely cull diploid males during early colony development to reduce the cost of diploid male production.

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