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

ABSTRACT: 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 hours. 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.

ORGANISM(S): Apis mellifera

PROVIDER: GSE127185 | GEO | 2019/09/10

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Polyandrous ant queens are inseminated early in their life and store sperm mixtures for a potential reproductive life of decades. However, they cannot re-mate later in life and are thus expected to control the loss of viable sperm because their life-time reproductive success is ultimately limited by the viability of sperm obtained in their single reproductive event. In the leaf-cutting ant Atta colombica, we have previously shown that sperm survival is lowered when getting in contact with seminal fluid of other males, and remains stable when in contact with secretions of the queen sperm storage organ (spermatheca). Here we aim to resolve the main protein-level interactions that mediate sperm competition dynamics and sperm preservation. We used artificial insemination and DIGE-based proteomics to identify proteomic changes when seminal fluid is exposed to spermathecal fluid. Seminal fluid was collected from mature males during field season experiments in Panama, by gently squeezing males’ abdomen until the ejaculate came out. Ejaculates from several males were kept together in ice and then centrifuged for 10 minutes at 13,500 g, the supernatant collected in a separate tube and then centrifuged again. The resulting supernatant was then transferred to another tube and stored at -20° C until further use. Four biological replicates of SF were collected from 4 colonies, each consisting of 400 µl SF from approximately 350 males. From each biological replicate three 100 µl aliquots were retrieved, and assigned to one of the following treatments: (1) un-inseminated controls, (2) inseminated SF retrieved after 30 min, and (3) inseminated SF retrieved after 12 h (Fig 1). Next, each of those aliquots was used to artificially inseminate 10 virgin queens (10 µl of aliquot per queen), for a total of 80 queens inseminated. Queens were allowed to recover for 30 min or 12 h before dissecting them to obtain the spermathecal content. All these spermathecal contents were then pooled per treatment and replicate, resulting in a total of 12 samples (3 treatments – un-inseminated SF, inseminated SF retrieved after 30 min inside the queen, and inseminated SF retrieved after 12 hours inside the queen - with 4 biological replicates). Proteins were precipitated in each sample by adding 4 volumes of ice-cold acetone for 4 hours at -20°C and centrifuged at 14,000 g for 10 minutes, after which supernatants were discarded and the protein pellets were stored at -80°C until further use. All of those 12 samples entered the DIGE analysis.

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

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