Abstract
Diapause is a physiological arrest of development ahead of adverse environmental conditions and is a critical phase of the life cycle of many insects. In bees, diapause has been reported in species from all seven taxonomic families. However, they exhibit a variety of diapause strategies. These different strategies are of particular interest since shifts in the phase of the insect life cycle in which diapause occurs have been hypothesized to promote the evolution of sociality. Here we provide a comprehensive evaluation of this hypothesis with phylogenetic analysis and ancestral state reconstruction (ASR) of the ecological and evolutionary factors associated with diapause phase. We find that social lifestyle, latitude and voltinism are significant predictors of the life stage in which diapause occurs. ASR revealed that the most recent common ancestor of all bees likely exhibited developmental diapause and shifts to adult, reproductive, or no diapause have occurred in the ancestors of lineages in which social behaviour has evolved. These results provide fresh insight regarding the role of diapause as a prerequisite for the evolution of sociality in bees.
Highlights
Diapause is a critical phase of the life cycle of many insects, and likely contributed to the ecological success of this highly diverse group of animals [1]
We found that diapause type is significantly correlated with social lifestyle, latitude and voltinism and that shifts from prepupae to adult, reproductive, or no diapause are likely to have preceded all independent origins of sociality in bees
We could not find any record of social species that diapause during development, though Exoneurella lawsoni exhibits plasticity between adult and developmental diapause
Summary
Diapause is a critical phase of the life cycle of many insects, and likely contributed to the ecological success of this highly diverse group of animals [1]. Many terms have been used to describe this phase of dormancy in insects, including diapause, adult diapause, reproductive diapause, hibernation, adult-wintering and overwintering. A defining feature of all these terms is an arrest in development or activity that is hormonally programmed in advance of environmental adversities such as harsh winter, dry seasons or food restriction [1,2]. Diapause may occur at any stage of life: egg, larval, pupal or adult [1,3], and metabolic suppression varies from a decrease in activity (diapause in adult phase) to complete developmental arrest (diapause during development) [4]. In warmer regions, there are multiple active generations before winter and only one will pass through diapause (facultative diapause), and in tropical regions without extreme seasonal variation in resources, many insects forego diapause [5]
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