Ferreira, HM;
Di Pietro, V;
Wenseleers, T;
Oi, CA;
(2023)
Conserved role of juvenile hormone in regulating behavioural maturation and division of labour in a highly eusocial wasp.
Animal Behaviour
, 200
pp. 59-69.
10.1016/j.anbehav.2023.03.013.
Preview |
Text
Oi_Manuscript_AB_V2.1_HelenaMendesFerreira.pdf Download (1MB) | Preview |
Abstract
Juvenile hormone (JH) in insects plays a key role in regulating reproduction, but in some social insects it has also acquired secondary functions in regulating the age-related division of labour among the workers. Previous work has shown that JH regulates division of labour in honey bees, in several primitively eusocial paper wasps and in leafcutter ants, which comprise three independent origins of sociality. It remains unclear, however, to what degree JH could have a conserved role in regulating division of labour within these clades. To this end, we investigated whether JH also regulates division of labour in the highly eusocial Vespine wasp Vespula vulgaris, in which JH had previously been shown only to regulate reproduction and affect queen pheromone signalling. In line with JH having a conserved role in regulating division of labour in social wasps, we show that JH in this species indeed affected behavioural maturation and division of labour in the worker caste. In particular, topical application of the JH analogue methoprene onto workers accelerated behavioural maturation and hastened the onset of foraging, thereby significantly decreasing the time they spent conducting activities inside the nest. We discuss how this conserved role of JH in regulating division of labour could indicate the same conserved genetic toolkits being used to regulate division of labour across several independent origins of sociality. In addition, we examine the implications of JH having several pleiotropic effects in this species and discuss whether this could constrain the expression of reproductive conflicts in their societies.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Conserved role of juvenile hormone in regulating behavioural maturation and division of labour in a highly eusocial wasp |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.anbehav.2023.03.013 |
| Publisher version: | http://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2023.03.013 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| Keywords: | division of labour, juvenile hormone, social insect, temporal polyethism, Vespula vulgaris |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences > Genetics, Evolution and Environment |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10170931 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
