Seminal fluid compromises visual perception in honeybee queens reducing their survival during additional mating flights

TY - JOUR

T1 - Seminal fluid compromises visual perception in honeybee queens reducing their survival during additional mating flights

AU - Liberti, Joanito

AU - Görner, Julia

AU - Welch, Mat

AU - Dosselli, Ryan

AU - Schiøtt, Morten

AU - Ogawa, Yuri

AU - Castleden, Ian

AU - Hemmi, Jan M.

AU - Baer-Imhoof, Barbara

AU - Boomsma, Jacobus J.

AU - Baer, Boris

PY - 2019/9

Y1 - 2019/9

N2 - Queens of social insects make all mate-choice decisions on a single day, except in honeybees whose queens can conduct mating flights for several days even when already inseminated by a number of drones. Honeybees therefore appear to have a unique, evolutionarily derived form of sexual conflict: a queen's decision to pursue risky additional mating flights is driven by later-life fitness gains from genetically more diverse worker-offspring but reduces paternity shares of the drones she already mated with. We used artificial insemination, RNA-sequencing and electroretinography to show that seminal fluid induces a decline in queen vision by perturbing the phototransduction pathway within 24-48 hr. Follow up field trials revealed that queens receiving seminal fluid flew two days earlier than sister queens inseminated with saline, and failed more often to return. These findings are consistent with seminal fluid components manipulating queen eyesight to reduce queen promiscuity across mating flights.

AB - Queens of social insects make all mate-choice decisions on a single day, except in honeybees whose queens can conduct mating flights for several days even when already inseminated by a number of drones. Honeybees therefore appear to have a unique, evolutionarily derived form of sexual conflict: a queen's decision to pursue risky additional mating flights is driven by later-life fitness gains from genetically more diverse worker-offspring but reduces paternity shares of the drones she already mated with. We used artificial insemination, RNA-sequencing and electroretinography to show that seminal fluid induces a decline in queen vision by perturbing the phototransduction pathway within 24-48 hr. Follow up field trials revealed that queens receiving seminal fluid flew two days earlier than sister queens inseminated with saline, and failed more often to return. These findings are consistent with seminal fluid components manipulating queen eyesight to reduce queen promiscuity across mating flights.

KW - Apis mellifera

KW - artificial insemination

KW - ecology

KW - evolutionary biology

KW - neurotranscriptomics

KW - RNA-sequencing

KW - sexual conflict

KW - social insects

U2 - 10.7554/eLife.45009

DO - 10.7554/eLife.45009

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 31500699

AN - SCOPUS:85071984153

SN - 2050-084X

VL - 8

JO - eLife

JF - eLife

M1 - e45009

ER -