AUTHOR=Oi Cintia A. , Oliveira Ricardo C. , van Zweden Jelle S. , Mateus Sidnei , Millar Jocelyn G. , Nascimento Fabio S. , Wenseleers Tom TITLE=Do Primitively Eusocial Wasps Use Queen Pheromones to Regulate Reproduction? A Case Study of the Paper Wasp Polistes satan JOURNAL=Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution VOLUME=7 YEAR=2019 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/ecology-and-evolution/articles/10.3389/fevo.2019.00199 DOI=10.3389/fevo.2019.00199 ISSN=2296-701X ABSTRACT=
In several highly eusocial insect species with morphologically distinct castes, queen-characteristic cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) have been shown to act as queen signals that suppress the reproduction of nestmate workers. However, it is not known whether such queen pheromones might also play a role in regulating reproductive division of labor in primitively eusocial insects that lack morphologically defined castes. Here, we experimentally tested whether a blend of CHCs which occurred in higher concentrations in the dominant breeding female acts as a queen pheromone, and inhibits reproduction by subordinate females in the primitively eusocial paper wasp