Abstract
Royal recognition is a central feature of insect societies, allowing them to maintain the reproductive division of labor and regulate colony demography. Queen recognition has been broadly demonstrated and queen recognition pheromones have been identified in social hymenopterans, and in one termite species. Here we describe behaviors that are elicited in workers and soldiers by neotenic queens and kings of the subterranean termite, Reticulitermes flavipes, and demonstrate the chemical basis for the behavior. Workers and soldiers readily perform a lateral or longitudinal shaking behavior upon antennal contact with queens and kings. When royal cuticular chemicals are transferred to live workers or inert glass dummies, they elicit antennation and shaking in a dose-dependent manner. The striking response to reproductives and their cuticular extracts suggests that royal-specific cuticular compounds act as recognition pheromones and that shaking behavior is a clear and measurable queen and king recognition response in this termite species.
Highlights
Social insects rely on chemical communication to function effectively; within the colony, pheromones mediate foraging, aggregation, defense, reproduction, and other essential processes [1,2]
Extracted colonies were kept either in clear plastic boxes lined with moist sand and pine shims for food or in 9-cm petri dishes with an autoclaved lab substrate consisting of 70% sawdust and 30% α-cellulose
We examined the behavioral responses of workers to queens in the photophase and scotophase, and under light and dark conditions
Summary
Social insects rely on chemical communication to function effectively; within the colony, pheromones mediate foraging, aggregation, defense, reproduction, and other essential processes [1,2]. Recognizing reproductive castes (queens in social hymenopterans, queens and kings in termites) is especially important to preserve the royal-worker division of labor and to ensure proper care for these high-value individuals. Pheromones largely mediate and guide the behavior and physiology of sterile castes in social hymenopteran colonies, with some notable exceptions that include visual signals and tactile/ physical interactions [3,4,5]. Pheromones in general and royal (usually queen) pheromones are generally classified into those that elicit immediate behaviors (releaser pheromones) and those that induce long-term physiological changes in sterile worker castes
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