PDF(Pubmed)
Abstract：
One of the most intriguing questions in eusocial insects is to understand how the overt reproductive conflict in the colony appears limited when queens or kings are senescent or lost because the morphologically similar individuals in the colony are reproductively totipotent. Whether there are some individuals who preferentially differentiate into replacement reproductives or not has received little attention. The consistent individual behavioral differences (also termed \"animal personality\") of individuals from the colony can shape cunningly their task and consequently affect the colony fitness but have been rarely investigated in eusocial insects. Here, we used the termite Reticulitermes labralis to investigate if variations in individual personalities (elusiveness and aggressiveness) may predict which individuals will perform reproductive differentiation within colonies. We observed that when we separately reared elusive and aggressive workers, elusive workers differentiate into reproductives significantly earlier than aggressive workers. When we reared them together in the proportions 12:3, 10:5, and 8:7 (aggressive workers: elusive workers), the first reproductives mostly differentiated from the elusive workers, and the reproductives differentiated from the elusive workers significantly earlier than from aggressive workers. Furthermore, we found that the number of workers participating in reproductive differentiation was significantly lower in the groups of both types of workers than in groups containing only elusive workers. Our results demonstrate that the elusiveness trait was a strong predictor of workers\' differentiation into replacement reproductives in R. labralis. Moreover, our results suggest that individual personalities within the insect society could play a key role in resolving the overt reproductive conflict.
摘要：
Eusocial昆虫中最有趣的问题之一是了解当皇后或国王衰老或迷失时，殖民地中公开的生殖冲突如何受到限制，因为殖民地中形态相似的个体具有生殖能力。是否有一些人优先区分为替代繁殖体，很少受到关注。殖民地个体的一致的个人行为差异（也称为“动物人格”）可以巧妙地塑造他们的任务，从而影响殖民地的适应性，但很少在社会性昆虫中进行研究。这里,我们使用白蚁背齿来调查个体性格的变化（难以捉摸和侵略性）是否可以预测哪些个体将在菌落内进行生殖分化。我们观察到，当我们分别培养难以捉摸和咄咄逼人的工人时，难以捉摸的工人明显比好斗的工人更早分化为繁殖者。当我们按照12:3、10:5和8:7的比例将它们饲养在一起（好斗的工人：难以捉摸的工人），第一批繁殖动物大多不同于难以捉摸的工人，繁殖者与难以捉摸的工人的区别明显早于与侵略性工人的区别。此外，我们发现,在这两种类型的工人组中,参与生殖分化的工人数量显著低于仅包含难以捉摸的工人组.我们的结果表明，难以捉摸的特征是工人分化为替代生殖的有力预测因子。此外，我们的结果表明，昆虫社会中的个体个性可能在解决公开的生殖冲突中发挥关键作用。
