TY - JOUR

T1 - Queen signaling in social wasps

AU - van Zweden, Jelle Stijn

AU - Bonckaert, Wim

AU - Wenseleers, Tom

AU - D'Ettorre, Patrizia

PY - 2014

Y1 - 2014

N2 - Social Hymenoptera are characterized by a reproductive division of labor, whereby queens perform most of the reproduction and workers help to raise her offspring. A long-lasting debate is whether queens maintain this reproductive dominance by manipulating their daughter workers into remaining sterile (queen control), or if instead queens honestly signal their fertility and workers reproduce according to their own evolutionary incentives (queen signaling). Here, we test these competing hypotheses using data from Vespine wasps. We show that in natural colonies of the Saxon wasp, Dolichovespula saxonica, queens emit reliable chemical cues of their true fertility and that these putative queen signals decrease as the colony develops and worker reproduction increases. Moreover, these putative pheromones of D. saxonica show significant conservation with those of Vespula vulgaris and other Vespinae, thereby arguing against fast evolution of signals as a result of a queen-worker arms race ensuing from queen control. Lastly, levels of worker reproduction in these species correspond well with their average colony kin structures, as predicted by the queen signaling hypothesis but not the queen control hypothesis. Altogether, this correlative yet comprehensive analysis provides compelling evidence that honest signaling explains levels of reproductive division of labor in social wasps.

AB - Social Hymenoptera are characterized by a reproductive division of labor, whereby queens perform most of the reproduction and workers help to raise her offspring. A long-lasting debate is whether queens maintain this reproductive dominance by manipulating their daughter workers into remaining sterile (queen control), or if instead queens honestly signal their fertility and workers reproduce according to their own evolutionary incentives (queen signaling). Here, we test these competing hypotheses using data from Vespine wasps. We show that in natural colonies of the Saxon wasp, Dolichovespula saxonica, queens emit reliable chemical cues of their true fertility and that these putative queen signals decrease as the colony develops and worker reproduction increases. Moreover, these putative pheromones of D. saxonica show significant conservation with those of Vespula vulgaris and other Vespinae, thereby arguing against fast evolution of signals as a result of a queen-worker arms race ensuing from queen control. Lastly, levels of worker reproduction in these species correspond well with their average colony kin structures, as predicted by the queen signaling hypothesis but not the queen control hypothesis. Altogether, this correlative yet comprehensive analysis provides compelling evidence that honest signaling explains levels of reproductive division of labor in social wasps.

KW - Animal communication

KW - Cuticular hydrocarbons

KW - Honest signal

KW - Pheromone

KW - Reproductive division of labor

KW - Vespidae

U2 - 10.1111/evo.12314

DO - 10.1111/evo.12314

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 24219699

AN - SCOPUS:84898058765

VL - 68

SP - 976

EP - 986

JO - Evolution; international journal of organic evolution

JF - Evolution; international journal of organic evolution

SN - 0014-3820

IS - 4

ER -