The relative importance of queen and king initial weights in termite colony foundation success
The relative importance of queen and king initial weights in termite colony foundation success
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DOI：
10.1007/s00040-019-00690-3
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发表时间：
2019-05-01
期刊：
影响因子：
1.3
通讯作者：
Chouvenc, T.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Chouvenc, T.
在白蚁中，初级繁殖通过有限的代谢储备进行扩散飞行。在殖民地的基础上，交配对需要足够的资源来生产前几个工人，通过双亲照顾。当异亲照料建立起来时，初级生殖动物完全由它们自己的后代抚养。因此，有人认为，在白蚁成虫中积累大量代谢储备的压力随着进化时间的推移而放松，这导致与祖先的木材蟑螂相比，有翅动物的大小逐渐减少。然而，如果具有相对大的内部代谢资源的配对比具有相对低的内部资源的配对更成功，则可以部分地抵消尺寸的这种定向减小。通过在实验室条件下建立具有广泛的雌性和雄性初始重量组合的初始白蚁菌落，用Coptotermes gestroi测试了这一假设。雌雄个体在9个月内耗尽了大部分的内部资源，雌雄个体的初始体重之和可以解释初始群体生长变异的27%。成熟的殖民地，可以投资到高品质的有翅类可能有轻微的健身优势;然而，这种优势可能是次要的其他环境因素，作为在大型Coptotermes分散飞行，绝大多数的有翅类死亡的头几天内，这将增加健身的殖民地，投资在数量上的质量。在一个给定的白蚁物种，成虫的相对大小，因此，反映了生殖策略权衡出现的物种的生活史。
In termites, primary reproductives proceed through dispersal flight with finite metabolic reserves. During colony foundation, the mated pair requires just enough resources to produce the first few workers, through biparental care. When alloparental care is established, the primary reproductives are fully supported by their own offspring. It was, therefore, argued that the pressure to accumulate large quantities of metabolic reserves in termite imagoes was relaxed over evolutionary time, which resulted in a progressive reduction in alate size compared to ancestral wood roaches. However, such directional reduction in size may partially be countered if mated pairs with relatively large internal metabolic resources are more successful than mated pairs with relatively low internal resources. This hypothesis was tested with Coptotermes gestroi by establishing incipient termite colonies with a wide range of combinations of female and male initial weights in laboratory conditions. Both females and males depleted most of their internal resources within 9months, and the combined initial weight of female and male explained 27% of the variation in incipient colony growth. Mature colonies that can invest into high-quality alates may have a slight fitness advantage; however, this advantage may be secondary to other environmental factors, as during large Coptotermes dispersal flights, a vast majority of alates die within the first few days, which would increase the fitness of colonies that invested in quantity over quality. Within a given termite species, the relative size of imagoes may, therefore, reflect a reproductive strategy trade-off emerging from the life history of the species.