Seminal fluid compromises visual perception in honeybee queens reducing their survival during additional mating flights.

Details

Serval ID
serval:BIB_93C551D85246
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Title
Seminal fluid compromises visual perception in honeybee queens reducing their survival during additional mating flights.
Journal
eLife
Author(s)
Liberti J., Görner J., Welch M., Dosselli R., Schiøtt M., Ogawa Y., Castleden I., Hemmi J.M., Baer-Imhoof B., Boomsma J.J., Baer B.
ISSN
2050-084X (Electronic)
ISSN-L
2050-084X
Publication state
Published
Issued date
10/09/2019
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
8
Language
english
Notes
Publication types: Journal Article
Publication Status: epublish
Abstract
Queens of social insects make all mate-choice decisions on a single day, except in honeybees whose queens can conduct mating flights for several days even when already inseminated by a number of drones. Honeybees therefore appear to have a unique, evolutionarily derived form of sexual conflict: a queen's decision to pursue risky additional mating flights is driven by later-life fitness gains from genetically more diverse worker-offspring but reduces paternity shares of the drones she already mated with. We used artificial insemination, RNA-sequencing and electroretinography to show that seminal fluid induces a decline in queen vision by perturbing the phototransduction pathway within 24-48 hr. Follow up field trials revealed that queens receiving seminal fluid flew two days earlier than sister queens inseminated with saline, and failed more often to return. These findings are consistent with seminal fluid components manipulating queen eyesight to reduce queen promiscuity across mating flights.
Keywords
Apis mellifera, RNA-sequencing, artificial insemination, ecology, evolutionary biology, neurotranscriptomics, sexual conflict, social insects
Pubmed
Web of science
Open Access
Yes
Create date
07/10/2019 13:44
Last modification date
07/07/2021 5:36
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