Reproductive plasticity and oogenesis in the queen honey bee (Apis mellifera)

Sarah E Aamidor; Carlos A M Cardoso-Júnior; Januar Harianto; Cameron J Nowell; Louise Cole; Benjamin P Oldroyd; Isobel Ronai

doi:10.1016/j.jinsphys.2021.104347

Reproductive plasticity and oogenesis in the queen honey bee (Apis mellifera)

J Insect Physiol. 2022 Jan:136:104347. doi: 10.1016/j.jinsphys.2021.104347. Epub 2021 Dec 10.

Authors

Sarah E Aamidor¹, Carlos A M Cardoso-Júnior², Januar Harianto³, Cameron J Nowell⁴, Louise Cole⁵, Benjamin P Oldroyd⁶, Isobel Ronai⁶

Affiliations

¹ Behaviour and Genetics of Social Insects Laboratory, Ecology and Evolution, School of Life and Environmental Science, Macleay Building A12, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. Electronic address: sarah.aamidor@sydney.edu.au.
² Departamento de Biologia Celulare Bioagentes Patogênicos, Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirao Preto, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Ribeirao Preto, Brazil.
³ School of Life and Environmental Science, Macleay Building A12, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
⁴ Drug Discovery Biology, Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Monash University, 381 Royal Parade, Parkville 3052, Victoria, Australia.
⁵ Microbial Imaging Facility, I3 Institute, Faculty of Science, The University of Technology Sydney, Australia.
⁶ Behaviour and Genetics of Social Insects Laboratory, Ecology and Evolution, School of Life and Environmental Science, Macleay Building A12, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.

PMID: 34902433
DOI: 10.1016/j.jinsphys.2021.104347

Abstract

In the honey bee (Apis mellifera), queen and worker castes originate from identical genetic templates but develop into different phenotypes. Queens lay up to 2000 eggs daily whereas workers are sterile in the queen's presence. Periodically queens stop laying: during swarming, when resources are scarce in winter, and when they are confined to a cage by beekeepers. We used confocal microscopy and gene expression assays to investigate the control of oogenesis in the ovaries of honey bee queens that were caged inside and outside the colony. We find evidence that queens use a different combination of 'checkpoints' to regulate oogenesis compared to honey bee workers and other insect species. However, both queen and worker castes likely use the same programmed cell death pathways to terminate oocyte development at their caste-specific checkpoints. Our results also suggest that a key factor driving the termination of oogenesis in queens is nutritional stress. Thus, queens may regulate oogenesis via the same regulatory pathways that were utilised by ancestral solitary species but likely have adjusted physiological checkpoints to suit their highly-derived life history.

Keywords: Eusociality; Honeybee; Nurse cell chamber; Ovariole; Ovary activation; Phenotypic plasticity.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Animals
Apoptosis
Bees / genetics
Female
Oogenesis*
Ovary
Ovum*
Reproduction