A nonspecific fatty acid within the bumblebee mating plug prevents females from remating
A nonspecific fatty acid within the bumblebee mating plug prevents females from remating
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.061027998
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发表时间：
2001-03-27
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Schmid-Hempel, P
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Baer, B;Morgan, ED;Schmid-Hempel, P
雄性的最佳交配策略与雌性不同，因为雌性从与几个雄性交配(一夫多妻制)中获益，而雄性从垄断雌性中获益，因此，雄性进化出了各种方法，例如从它们的附属腺转移抑制物质，以确保雌性后代的独有父权，这通常会对雌性的健康造成不利影响。抑制物质已被鉴定为多肽或其他特定分子。不幸的是，在群居昆虫中，雄性交配特征的研究很少，尽管雄性群居昆虫可能与在其他物种中发现的一样，对雌性交配行为具有相同的基本影响。最近开发的一项为大黄蜂女王进行人工授精的技术使我们能够研究雄性大黄蜂交配插头中的哪种化学物质可以阻止雌性大黄蜂进一步交配。令人惊讶的是，我们发现活性物质是亚油酸，一种普遍存在的非特异性脂肪酸。与其他昆虫物种的交配插头相反，大黄蜂交配插头效率很高，允许雄蜂决定女王交配的频率。
The best mating strategy for males differs from that of females, because females gain from mating with several males (polyandry), but males gain from monopolizing the females, As a consequence, males have evolved a variety of methods, such as the transfer of inhibitory substances from their accessory glands, to ensure exclusive paternity of the female's offspring, generally with detrimental effects on female fitness. Inhibitory substances have been identified as peptides or other specific molecules. Unfortunately, in social insects male-mating traits are investigated only poorly, although male social insects might have the same fundamental influence on female-mating behavior as found in other species. A recently developed technique for the artificial insemination of bumblebee queens allowed us to investigate which chemical compound in the mating plug of male bumblebees, Bombus terrestris L., prevents females (queens) from further mating. Surprisingly, we found that the active substance is linoleic acid, a ubiquitous and rather unspecific fatty acid. Contrary to mating plugs in other insect species, the bumblebee mating plug is highly efficient and allows the males to determine queen-mating frequencies.