Juvenile hormone titers in European and Africanized honey bees in Brazil

作者：Gene E. Robinson, Alain Strambi, Colette Strambi, Zilá Luz Paulino Simões, Sibele O. Tozeto, Júlia M. Negraes Barbosa · 发表于：General and Comparative Endocrinology · 年份：1987 · DOI：10.1016/0016-6480(87)90258-9 · 被引用次数：58 · 研究领域：Insect and Arachnid Ecology and Behavior、Plant and animal studies、Insect and Pesticide Research

Juvenile hormone (JH) is a key regulator of insect development and reproduction. Given that JH commonly affects adult insect fertility, it has been hypothesized to also regulate behaviors such as dominance and aggression that are associated with reproduction. We tested this hypothesis in the bumble bee Bombus terrestris for which JH has been shown to be the major gonadotropin. We used the allatoxin Precocene-I (P-I) to reduce hemolymph JH titers and replacement therapy with the natural JH to revert this effect. In small orphan groups of workers with similar body size but mixed treatment, P-I treated bees showed lower aggressiveness, oogenesis, and dominance rank compared with control and replacement therapy treated bees. In similar groups in which all bees were treated similarly, there was a clear dominance hierarchy, even in P-I and replacement therapy treatment groups in which the bees showed similar levels of ovarian activation. In a similar experiment in which bees differed in body size, larger bees were more likely to be dominant despite their similar JH treatment and ovarian state. In the last experiment, we show that JH manipulation does not affect dominance rank in groups that had already established a stable dominance hierarchy. These findings solve previous ambiguities concerning whether or not JH affects dominance in bumble bees. JH positively affects dominance, but bees with similar levels of JH can nevertheless establish dominance hierarchies. Thus, multiple fact...