Worker-Born Males Are Smaller but Have Similar Reproduction Ability to Queen-Born Males in Bumblebees

Queen-worker conflict over the reproduction of males exists in the majority of haplodiplioidy hymenpteran species such as bees, wasps, and ants, whose workers lose mating ability but can produce haploid males in colony. Bumblebee is one of the representatives of primitively eusocial insects with pla...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales:	Huiyue Zhao, Yanjie Liu, Hong Zhang, Tom D. Breeze, Jiandong An
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	MDPI AG 2021
Materias:	<i>Bombus terrestris</i> queenless micro-colony males copulation sperm colony foundation Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/dd1097c073804b7da4868ec65cc0c40f
Etiquetas:	Agregar Etiqueta Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!

id	oai:doaj.org-article:dd1097c073804b7da4868ec65cc0c40f
record_format	dspace
spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:dd1097c073804b7da4868ec65cc0c40f2021-11-25T17:59:40ZWorker-Born Males Are Smaller but Have Similar Reproduction Ability to Queen-Born Males in Bumblebees10.3390/insects121110082075-4450https://doaj.org/article/dd1097c073804b7da4868ec65cc0c40f2021-11-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.mdpi.com/2075-4450/12/11/1008https://doaj.org/toc/2075-4450Queen-worker conflict over the reproduction of males exists in the majority of haplodiplioidy hymenpteran species such as bees, wasps, and ants, whose workers lose mating ability but can produce haploid males in colony. Bumblebee is one of the representatives of primitively eusocial insects with plastic division labor and belongs to monandrous and facultative low polyandry species that have reproductive totipotent workers, which are capable of competing with mother queen to produce haploid males in the queenright colony compared to higher eusocial species, e.g., honeybees. So, bumblebees should be a better material to study worker reproduction, but the reproductive characteristics of worker-born males (WMs) remain unclear. Here, we choose the best-studied bumblebee <i>Bombus terrestris</i> to evaluate the morphological characteristics and reproductive ability of WMs from the queenless micro-colonies. The sexually matured WMs showed smaller in forewing length and weight, relatively less sperm counts but equally high sperm viability in comparison with the queen-born males (QMs) of the queenright colony. Despite with smaller size, the WMs are able to successfully mate with the virgin queens in competition with the QMs under laboratory conditions, which is quite different from the honeybees reported. In addition, there was no difference in the colony development, including the traits such as egg-laying rate, colony establishment rate, and populations of offspring, between the WM- and the QM-mated queens. Our study highlights the equivalent reproductive ability of worker-born males compared to that of queens, which might exhibit a positive application or special use of bumblebee rearing, especially for species whose males are not enough for copulation. Further, our finding contributes new evidence to the kin selection theory and suggests worker reproduction might relate to the evolution of sociality in bees.Huiyue ZhaoYanjie LiuHong ZhangTom D. BreezeJiandong AnMDPI AGarticle<i>Bombus terrestris</i>queenless micro-colonymalescopulationspermcolony foundationScienceQENInsects, Vol 12, Iss 1008, p 1008 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	<i>Bombus terrestris</i> queenless micro-colony males copulation sperm colony foundation Science Q
spellingShingle	<i>Bombus terrestris</i> queenless micro-colony males copulation sperm colony foundation Science Q Huiyue Zhao Yanjie Liu Hong Zhang Tom D. Breeze Jiandong An Worker-Born Males Are Smaller but Have Similar Reproduction Ability to Queen-Born Males in Bumblebees
description	Queen-worker conflict over the reproduction of males exists in the majority of haplodiplioidy hymenpteran species such as bees, wasps, and ants, whose workers lose mating ability but can produce haploid males in colony. Bumblebee is one of the representatives of primitively eusocial insects with plastic division labor and belongs to monandrous and facultative low polyandry species that have reproductive totipotent workers, which are capable of competing with mother queen to produce haploid males in the queenright colony compared to higher eusocial species, e.g., honeybees. So, bumblebees should be a better material to study worker reproduction, but the reproductive characteristics of worker-born males (WMs) remain unclear. Here, we choose the best-studied bumblebee <i>Bombus terrestris</i> to evaluate the morphological characteristics and reproductive ability of WMs from the queenless micro-colonies. The sexually matured WMs showed smaller in forewing length and weight, relatively less sperm counts but equally high sperm viability in comparison with the queen-born males (QMs) of the queenright colony. Despite with smaller size, the WMs are able to successfully mate with the virgin queens in competition with the QMs under laboratory conditions, which is quite different from the honeybees reported. In addition, there was no difference in the colony development, including the traits such as egg-laying rate, colony establishment rate, and populations of offspring, between the WM- and the QM-mated queens. Our study highlights the equivalent reproductive ability of worker-born males compared to that of queens, which might exhibit a positive application or special use of bumblebee rearing, especially for species whose males are not enough for copulation. Further, our finding contributes new evidence to the kin selection theory and suggests worker reproduction might relate to the evolution of sociality in bees.
format	article
author	Huiyue Zhao Yanjie Liu Hong Zhang Tom D. Breeze Jiandong An
author_facet	Huiyue Zhao Yanjie Liu Hong Zhang Tom D. Breeze Jiandong An
author_sort	Huiyue Zhao
title	Worker-Born Males Are Smaller but Have Similar Reproduction Ability to Queen-Born Males in Bumblebees
title_short	Worker-Born Males Are Smaller but Have Similar Reproduction Ability to Queen-Born Males in Bumblebees
title_full	Worker-Born Males Are Smaller but Have Similar Reproduction Ability to Queen-Born Males in Bumblebees
title_fullStr	Worker-Born Males Are Smaller but Have Similar Reproduction Ability to Queen-Born Males in Bumblebees
title_full_unstemmed	Worker-Born Males Are Smaller but Have Similar Reproduction Ability to Queen-Born Males in Bumblebees
title_sort	worker-born males are smaller but have similar reproduction ability to queen-born males in bumblebees
publisher	MDPI AG
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/dd1097c073804b7da4868ec65cc0c40f
work_keys_str_mv	AT huiyuezhao workerbornmalesaresmallerbuthavesimilarreproductionabilitytoqueenbornmalesinbumblebees AT yanjieliu workerbornmalesaresmallerbuthavesimilarreproductionabilitytoqueenbornmalesinbumblebees AT hongzhang workerbornmalesaresmallerbuthavesimilarreproductionabilitytoqueenbornmalesinbumblebees AT tomdbreeze workerbornmalesaresmallerbuthavesimilarreproductionabilitytoqueenbornmalesinbumblebees AT jiandongan workerbornmalesaresmallerbuthavesimilarreproductionabilitytoqueenbornmalesinbumblebees
_version_	1718411772726083584

Worker-Born Males Are Smaller but Have Similar Reproduction Ability to Queen-Born Males in Bumblebees

Ejemplares similares