Queen mandibular pheromone modulates hemolymph ecdysteroid titers in adult Apis mellifera workers

Trawinski, Ashton M.; Fahrbach, Susan E.

doi:10.1007/s13592-018-0562-6

Cited by 13 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…This evolutionary history is reflected today by the partitioned expression of the same genome between workers and queens 29,119,120 . This plastic state is still observed in species considered to be "facultatively social" (note that this label does not imply that all social species progress along similar or predictable evolutionary paths 18 122 , control of nutritional intake 123 , and multiple modes of physical interaction such as piping and drumming 124 . In various ant and bee species, secretions passed among workers and queens can influence the fertility of all engaged actors, and thus influence colony productivity overall.…”

Section: Eusocial Colony Physiology: Hormonal Mechanisms and Evolutiomentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Regulation of fertility in the eusocial insect colony occurs via a variety of mechanisms that are all essentially absent in solitary insects. These mechanisms include short-range chemical signaling 122 , control of nutritional intake 123 , and multiple modes of physical interaction such as piping and drumming 124 . In various ant and bee species, secretions passed among workers and queens can influence the fertility of all engaged actors, and thus influence colony productivity overall.…”

Section: Case Studies In Colony Physiology: Ancestral Traits Under Co...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Distributed physiology and the molecular basis of social life in eusocial insects

Friedman

Johnson

Linksvayer

2020

Hormones and Behavior

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The traditional focus of physiological and functional genomic research is on molecular processes that play out within a single body. In contrast, when social interactions occur, molecular and behavioral responses in interacting individuals can lead to physiological processes that are distributed across multiple individuals. In eusocial insect colonies, such multi-body processes are tightly integrated, involving social communication mechanisms that regulate the physiology of colony members. As a result, conserved physiological mechanisms, for example related to pheromone detection and neural signaling pathways, are deployed in novel contexts and regulate emergent colony traits during the evolutionary origin and elaboration of social complexity. Here we review conceptual frameworks for organismal and colony physiology, and highlight functional genomic, physiological, and behavioral research exploring how colony-level traits arise from physical and chemical interactions among nestmates. We highlight mechanistic work exploring how colony traits arise from physical and chemical interactions among physiologically-specialized nestmates of 1 various developmental stages. We consider similarities and differences between organismal and colony physiology, and make specific predictions based on a decentralized perspective on the function and evolution of colony traits. Integrated models of colony physiological function will be useful to address fundamental questions related to the evolution and ecology of collective behavior in natural systems. Colony Organization = Social Anatomy + Social PhysiologyEusocial colonial insects, such as ants, termites, and honey bees, thrive across almost all terrestrial ecosystems 1,2 . The ecological success of these species rests in their use of colony traits, such as nest architecture 3,4 and collective foraging behavior 5-7 , which are functionally absent in solitary insects yet keenly developed in eusocial taxa. In the eusocial insects, division of labor (DOL) describes how nestmates vary in their form and function. DOL formalizes the extent of specialization among nestmates in the performance of tasks, usually with a physiological or morphological basis or arising from nestmate age (temporal polyethism) and experience [8][9][10][11] . We build off of the conceptual framework of Johnson & Linksvayer 12 that considers eusocial colony organization from the perspective of social anatomy & social physiology : Social anatomy is the notion that colonies are composed of specialized parts with limited roles, like the organs of an individual animal. Specialized colony anatomy allows for greater productivity and efficiency for the completion of many tasks.Physiological specialization exists at multiple levels within the colony. Queen-worker specialization allows for an increased reproductive output of queens alongside increased work output from workers, from the same diploid female genome 13 .Subspecialization among workers can manifest as permanent variation in body morphology 14 , temporal polyet...

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Section: Eusocial Colony Physiology: Hormonal Mechanisms and Evolutiomentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Case Studies In Colony Physiology: Ancestral Traits Under Co...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Distributed physiology and the molecular basis of social life in eusocial insects

Friedman

Johnson

Linksvayer

2020

Hormones and Behavior

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“…In D. melanogaster , both fru (Dalton et al, 2009) and ERR (Kovalenko et al, 2019) have been shown to regulate similar genes known to be induced by ecdysone receptor (EcR) signalling. In honey bees, EcR knockdown is associated with differences in transcript levels of several genes discussed above, including Kr‐h1 (Mello et al, 2014), and QMP exposure is associated with high ecdysteroid titres (Trawinski & Fahrbach, 2018). In our study, fru was paternally biased in unresponsive workers, whereas ERR was maternally biased in responsive workers.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond conflict: Kinship theory of intragenomic conflict predicts individual variation in altruistic behaviour

Bresnahan,

Galbraith,

et al. 2023

Molecular Ecology

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Behavioural variation is essential for animals to adapt to different social and environmental conditions. The Kinship Theory of Intragenomic Conflict (KTIC) predicts that parent‐specific alleles can support different behavioural strategies to maximize allele fitness. Previous studies, including in honey bees (Apis mellifera), supported predictions of the KTIC for parent‐specific alleles to promote selfish behaviour. Here, we test the KTIC prediction that for altruism‐promoting genes (i.e. those that promote behaviours that support the reproductive fitness of kin), the allele with the higher altruism optimum should be selected to be expressed while the other is silenced. In honey bee colonies, workers act altruistically when tending to the queen by performing a ‘retinue’ behaviour, distributing the queen's mandibular pheromone (QMP) throughout the hive. Workers exposed to QMP do not activate their ovaries, ensuring they care for the queen's brood instead of competing to lay unfertilized eggs. Due to the haplodiploid genetics of honey bees, the KTIC predicts that response to QMP is favoured by the maternal genome. We report evidence for parent‐of‐origin effects on the retinue response behaviour, ovarian development and gene expression in brains of worker honey bees exposed to QMP, consistent with the KTIC. Additionally, we show enrichment for genes with parent‐of‐origin expression bias within gene regulatory networks associated with variation in bees' response to QMP. Our study demonstrates that intragenomic conflict can shape diverse social behaviours and influence expression patterns of single genes as well as gene networks.

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“…Cages also received the QMP treatment for the duration of those 3 or 8 days. Synthetic QMP ("TempQueen"; Betterbee Inc.) was presented as a slow-release strip placed at the bottom of the QMP+ cages, while QMP− cages did not receive a QMP strip, as in an earlier study [21]. The strip was used according to the manufacture instructions and contained an equivalent of the 5-component blend of QMP.…”

Section: Honey Beesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of queen mandibular pheromone on nurse-aged honey bee (Apis mellifera) hypopharyngeal gland size and lipid metabolism

Oreshkova,

Scofield,

Amdam

2023

Preprint

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Queen honey bees (Apis mellifera) release Queen Mandibular Pheromone (QMP) to regulate traits in the caste of female helpers called workers. QMP signals the queen’s presence and suppresses worker reproduction. In the absence of reproduction, young workers take care of the queen and her larvae (nurse tasks), while older workers forage. In nurses, QMP increases lipid stores in abdominal fat tissue (fat body) and protein content in hypopharyngeal glands (HPG). HPG are worker-specific head glands that can synthesize royal jelly used in colony nourishment. Larger HPG signifies ability to secrete royal jelly, while shrunken glands characterize foragers that do not make jelly. While it is known that QMP increases abdominal lipid stores, the mechanism is unclear: Does QMP make workers consume more pollen which provides lipids, or does QMP increase lipogenic capacity? Here, we measure abdominal lipogenic capacity as fatty acid synthase (FAS) activity while monitoring abdominal protein content and HPG size in caged workers. Cages allow us to rigorously control worker age, pheromone exposure, and diet. In our 2-factorial design, 3- vs. 8-day-old workers (age factor) were exposed to synthetic QMP or not (pheromone factor) while consuming a lipid deficient diet. We found that QMP did not influence abdominal FAS activity or protein content, but QMP still increased HPG size in the absence of dietary lipids. Our data revealed a positive correlation between abdominal protein content and HPG size. Our findings show that QMP is not a strong modulator of lipogenic capacity in caged worker bees. However, our data may reflect that QMP mobilizes abdominal protein for production of jelly, in line with previous findings on effects of honey bee Brood Pheromone. Overall, our study expands the understanding of how QMP can affect honey bee workers. Such insights are important beyond regulatory biology, as QMP is used in various aspects of beekeeping.

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Queen mandibular pheromone modulates hemolymph ecdysteroid titers in adult Apis mellifera workers

Cited by 13 publications

References 59 publications

Distributed physiology and the molecular basis of social life in eusocial insects

Distributed physiology and the molecular basis of social life in eusocial insects

Beyond conflict: Kinship theory of intragenomic conflict predicts individual variation in altruistic behaviour

The effects of queen mandibular pheromone on nurse-aged honey bee (Apis mellifera) hypopharyngeal gland size and lipid metabolism

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