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Impact of immune activation on stored sperm viability in ant queens.

ABSTRACT: Ant queens mate on a single occasion early in life and store millions of sperm cells in their spermatheca. By carefully using stored sperm to fertilize eggs, they can produce large colonies of thousands of individuals. Queens can live for decades and their lifetime reproductive success is dependent on their ability to keep stored sperm alive. Maintaining high sperm viability requires metabolic energy which could trade-off with other costly processes such as immunity. We tested the impact of immune activation on the survival of stored sperm by prompting Lasius niger ant queens to mount a melanization response and subsequently measuring sperm viability in their spermatheca. Since queens face different challenges that influence energy allocation depending on the life stage of their colony, we measured sperm viability after immune activation in both newly mated queens (incipient) and in queens 1 year after mating (established). We found that immune activation reduced sperm viability in established queens but not in incipient queens, showing that the cost of immunity on sperm preservation depends on the life stage. Unexpectedly, established queens had significantly higher sperm viability in their spermatheca compared to incipient queens suggesting that ant queens are able to remove dead sperm from their spermatheca.

SUBMITTER: Cherasse S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6304054 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Impact of immune activation on stored sperm viability in ant queens.

Chérasse Sarah S Aron Serge S

Proceedings. Biological sciences 20181201 1893

Ant queens mate on a single occasion early in life and store millions of sperm cells in their spermatheca. By carefully using stored sperm to fertilize eggs, they can produce large colonies of thousands of individuals. Queens can live for decades and their lifetime reproductive success is dependent on their ability to keep stored sperm alive. Maintaining high sperm viability requires metabolic energy which could trade-off with other costly processes such as immunity. We tested the impact of immu ...[more]

PMID: 30963911

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Project description:Queen health is closely linked to colony performance in honey bees as a single queen is normally responsible for all egg laying and brood production within the colony. In the U. S. in recent years, queens have been failing at a high rate; with 50% or greater of queens replaced in colonies within 6 months when historically a queen might live one to two years. This high rate of queen failure coincides with the high mortality rates of colonies in the US, some years with >50% of colonies dying. In the current study, surveys of sperm viability in US queens were made to determine if sperm viability plays a role in queen or colony failure. Wide variation was observed in sperm viability from four sets of queens removed from colonies that beekeepers rated as in good health (n = 12; average viability = 92%), were replacing as part of normal management (n = 28; 57%), or where rated as failing (n = 18 and 19; 54% and 55%). Two additional paired set of queens showed a statistically significant difference in viability between colonies rated by the beekeeper as failing or in good health from the same apiaries. Queens removed from colonies rated in good health averaged high viability (ca. 85%) while those rated as failing or in poor health had significantly lower viability (ca. 50%). Thus low sperm viability was indicative of, or linked to, colony performance. To explore the source of low sperm viability, six commercial queen breeders were surveyed and wide variation in viability (range 60-90%) was documented between breeders. This variability could originate from the drones the queens mate with or temperature extremes that queens are exposed to during shipment. The role of shipping temperature as a possible explanation for low sperm viability was explored. We documented that during shipment queens are exposed to temperature spikes (<8 and > 40°C) and these spikes can kill 50% or more of the sperm stored in queen spermathecae in live queens. Clearly low sperm viability is linked to colony performance and laboratory and field data provide evidence that temperature extremes are a potential causative factor.

Dataset Information

Impact of immune activation on stored sperm viability in ant queens.

Publications

Impact of immune activation on stored sperm viability in ant queens.

Similar Datasets

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