Social administration of juvenile hormone to larvae increases body size and nutritional needs for pupation

Author:

Negroni Matteo A.1ORCID,LeBoeuf Adria C.12ORCID

Affiliation:

1. Department of Biology, University of Fribourg, Chemin du Musée 10, 1700, Fribourg, Switzerland

2. Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, UK

Abstract

Social insects often display extreme variation in body size and morphology within the same colony. In many species, adult morphology is socially regulated by workers during larval development. While larval nutrition may play a role in this regulation, it is often difficult to identify precisely what larvae receive from rearing workers, especially when larvae are fed through social regurgitation. Across insects, juvenile hormone is a major regulator of development. In the ant Camponotus floridanus , this hormone is present in the socially regurgitated fluid of workers. We investigated the role the social transfer of juvenile hormone in the social regulation of development. To do this, we administered an artificial regurgitate to larvae through a newly developed handfeeding method that was or was not supplemented with juvenile hormone. Orally administered juvenile hormone increased the nutritional needs of larvae, allowing them to reach a larger size at pupation. Instead of causing them to grow faster, the juvenile hormone treatment extended larval developmental time, allowing them to accumulate resources over a longer period. Handfeeding ant larvae with juvenile hormone resulted in larger adult workers after metamorphosis, suggesting a role for socially transferred juvenile hormone in the colony-level regulation of worker size over colony maturation.

Funder

Human Frontier Science Program

Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung

Novartis Stiftung für Medizinisch-Biologische Forschung

Publisher

The Royal Society

Subject

Multidisciplinary

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