小火蚂蚁(LFA),Wasmanniaauropunctata,是一种严重的入侵害虫,于1999年首次在夏威夷岛上报道,此后在整个岛上传播并建立了自己。LFA被认为是最糟糕的100种入侵物种之一,具有显著的生态,农业,以及入侵地区的公共卫生影响,其中包括大部分热带新世界。尽管局部根除努力已被证明是成功的,它们密集且难以实施。此外,LFA的高侵袭能力在该物种建立的地区抵抗这些控制努力,并且可以重新感染治疗的地区。这项研究旨在确定LFA皇后是否对巢穴中的新皇后产生抑制作用,作为确定LFA的潜在女王信息素的第一步。女王信息素可以提供一种关闭LFA生殖能力的手段,可能通过抑制新皇后的产生或诱使皇后或预定的皇后幼虫的处决。当比较无女王实验巢和一夫多妻制实验巢时,八个无女王巢中有六个成功地将新的阿尔特女王(2.25女王/巢)和无人机(3.63无人机/巢)都饲养到成年,而八个一夫多妻制巢中只有三个饲养的性幼虫未能发育到成年甚至p阶段。这些结果表明,交易成熟的LFA皇后会抑制LFA巢中新的alate皇后的产生,并且是LFA可能利用女王信息素的第一个证据。
The little fire ant (LFA), Wasmannia auropunctata, is a serious invasive pest first reported on Hawaii Island in 1999, and has since spread and established itself across the island. LFA is considered one of the worst 100 invasive species and has significant ecological, agricultural, and public health impacts in invaded areas, which include much of the tropical New World. Although localized eradication efforts have proven successful, they are intensive and difficult to implement. Furthermore, LFA\'s high invasive-ability resists these control efforts in areas where the species is established and can re-infest treated areas. This research set out to determine whether LFA queens have a suppressant effect on new queen production in nests, as a first step in identifying a potential queen pheromone for LFA. A queen pheromone could offer a means to shutdown LFA reproductive capability, potentially by suppressing the production of new queens or inducing the execution of queens or queen-destined larvae. When queenless experimental nests and polygyne experimental nests were compared, six out of eight queenless nests successfully reared both new alate queens (2.25 queens/nest) and drones (3.63 drones/nest) to adulthood, whereas only three of eight polygyne nests reared sexual larvae that failed to develop to adulthood or even the pupal stage. These results suggest that dealate mature LFA queens suppress the production of new alate queens in LFA nests, and is the first evidence that LFA may utilize a queen pheromone.