Abstract
Cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) are often used in the chemical communication among social insects. CHCs can be used in nestmate recognition and as queen pheromones, the latter allows the regulation of the reproductive division of labor. In the common wasp Vespula vulgaris, CHCs and egg-marking hydrocarbons are caste-specific, being hydrocarbon queen pheromones and egg maternity signals. Whether these compounds are conserved among other Vespinae wasps remains unknown. Queens, virgin queens, reproductive workers, and workers belonging to four different wasp species, Dolichovespula media, Dolichovespula saxonica, Vespa crabro, and Vespula germanica, were collected and studied. The cuticular hydrocarbons, egg surface, and Dufour’s gland composition were characterized and it was found that chemical compounds are caste-specific in the four species. Quantitative and qualitative differences were detected in the cuticle, eggs, and Dufour’s gland. Some specific hydrocarbons that were shown to be overproduced in the cuticle of queens were also present in higher quantities in queen-laid eggs and in their Dufour’s gland. These hydrocarbons can be indicated as putative fertility signals that regulate the division of reproductive labor in these Vespine societies. Our results are in line with the literature for V. vulgaris and D. saxonica, in which hydrocarbons were shown to be conserved queen signals. This work presents correlative evidence that queen chemical compounds are found not only over the body surface of females but also in other sources, such as the Dufour’s gland and eggs.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the students for field work assistance and An Vandoren for running the samples in the GC-MS. We thank the anonymous reviewers for their suggestion on the early version of this work.
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This study was financially supported by Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – Brasil (CAPES) – Finance Code 001 and grant 2018/22461-3 São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) to RCS. Funding was provided from Bilateral grant FWO-FAPESP to CAO, FSN and TW (process: 2018/10996-0 and 2021/05598-8 FAPESP and FWO: GOF8319N, FWO: GOF6622N), Research Foundation Flanders to CAO (postdoctoral fellowship FWO-12V6318N and research grant FWO-1513219N) and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico to FSN (307702/2018-9).
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Rafael Carvalho da Silva and Cintia Akemi Oi contributed to the study conception and design, material preparation, data collection, and analysis. Cintia Akemi Oi, Tom Wenseleers, and Fabio Santos do Nascimento were responsible for obtaining funding. Cintia Akemi Oi, Tom Wenseleers and Fabio Santos do Nascimento were responsible for project administration. Rafael Carvalho da Silva wrote the first draft of the manuscript and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript version.
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da Silva, R.C., do Nascimento, F.S., Wenseleers, T. et al. Chemical signatures of egg maternity and Dufour’s gland in Vespine wasps. Sci Nat 110, 25 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-023-01852-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-023-01852-x