期刊
HORMONES AND BEHAVIOR
卷 61, 期 4, 页码 559-564出版社
ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2012.02.002
关键词
Juvenile hormone; Evolutionary endocrinology; Caste; Developmental plasticity; Split function hypothesis; Cooperation
资金
- University of Michigan
Social insects provide good models for studying how and why the mechanisms that underlie reproduction vary, as there is dramatic reproductive plasticity within and between species. Here, we test how the effect of juvenile hormone (JH) on fertility covaries with cooperative behavior in workers and nest-founding queens in the primitively eusocial wasp Polistes metricus. P. metricus foundresses and workers appear morphologically similar and both are capable of reproduction, though there is variation in the extent of social cooperation and the probability of reproduction across castes. Do the endocrine mechanisms that mediate reproduction co-vary with cooperative behavior? We found dramatic differences in the effect of JH on fertility across castes. In non-cooperative nest-founding queens, all individuals responded to JH by increasing their fertility. However, in cooperative workers, the effect of JH on fertility varies with body weight; large workers increase their fertility in response to JH while small workers do not. The variation in JH response may be an adaptation to facilitate resource allocation based on the probability of independent reproduction. This work contrasts with previous studies in closely related Polistes dominulus paper wasps, in which both foundresses and workers form cooperative associations and both castes show similar, condition dependent JH response. The variation in JH responsiveness within and between species suggests that endocrine responsiveness and the factors influencing caste differentiation are surprisingly evolutionarily labile. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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