Complex social behaviour derived from maternal reproductive traits

A fundamental goal of sociobiology is to explain how complex social behaviour evolves, especially in social insects, the exemplars of social living. Although still the subject of much controversy, recent theoretical explanations have focused on the evolutionary origins of worker behaviour (assistance from daughters that remain in the nest and help their mother to reproduce) through expression of maternal care behaviour towards siblings. A key prediction of this evolutionary model is that traits involved in maternal care have been co-opted through heterochronous expression of maternal genes to result in sib-care, the hallmark of highly evolved social life in insects. A coupling of maternal behaviour to reproductive status evolved in solitary insects, and was a ready substrate for the evolution of worker-containing societies. Here we show that division of foraging labour among worker honey bees (Apis mellifera) is linked to the reproductive status of facultatively sterile females. We thereby identify the evolutionary origin of a widely expressed social-insect behavioural syndrome, and provide a direct demonstration of how variation in maternal reproductive traits gives rise to complex social behaviour in non-reproductive helpers.     

Pretender punishment induced by chemical signalling in a queenless ant

Animal societies are stages for both conflict and cooperation. Reproduction is often monopolized by one or a few individuals who behave aggressively to prevent subordinates from reproducing (for example, naked mole-rats, wasps and ants). Here we report an unusual mechanism by which the dominant individual maintains reproductive control. In the queenless ant Dinoponera quadriceps, only the alpha female reproduces. If the alpha is challenged by another female she chemically marks the pretender who is then punished by low-ranking females. This cooperation between alpha and low-rankers allows the alpha to inflict punishment indirectly, thereby maintaining her reproductive primacy without having to fight.     

Insurance-based advantage to helpers in a tropical hover wasp

The origin and maintenance of eusociality is a central problem in evolutionary biology. Eusocial groups contain individuals that forfeit their own reproduction in order to help others reproduce. In facultatively eusocial taxa, offspring can choose whether to found new nests or become helpers in their natal groups. In many facultatively eusocial insects, offspring need continuous care during development, but adult carers have life expectancies shorter than the developmental period. When a lone foundress dies, her partly reared brood are usually doomed. Here, we show that helpers in a tropical hover wasp (Liostenogaster flavolineata) have an insurance-based advantage over lone foundresses because after a helper dies, most of the brood that she has partly reared will be brought to maturity by surviving nest-mates. After some of the helpers are experimentally removed from a multi-female nest, the reduced group is left with more brood than it would normally rear. We found that larger, more valuable extra brood were reared through to maturity, but not smaller, less valuable brood. Smaller brood may be sacrificed to feed larger brood, and reduced groups probably benefited from increased short-term helper recruitment. Rearing extra brood did not increase adult mortality or brood development time.     

灰飞虱Wolbachia群体生物学的遗传特性研究

Ｗｏｌｂａｃｈｉａ是存在于多种昆虫生殖器官的一类共生菌,它可能在宿 主群体中引起细菌质不亲和性而给宿 主带来生殖优势。对灰飞虱体内的Ｗｏｌｂａｃｈｉａｆｊｔｆｄｇｐｗ,ｖ ｇｍ ｐｇｃｆｍｗ ｑｎｎｋｕｄｙｊｒ ｄｏ ｎｕｉ     

世界一流学会的发展特点及建设途径

 选取典型的世界一流学会，分析了其在学术交流、社会治理、科学普及、国际合作、会员服务、运行机制、发展环境等方面呈现的发展趋势与特点。总体来看，与世界一流学会相比较，中国学会在多个层面有较大差距。当前，中国学会在建设一流学会上有一定的体制、人才优势，也适逢科技事业快速发展的机遇期。建议科协组织持续优化学会发展环境；对标世界一流学会，提升学术发展引领力；广泛开展国际交往，联络全球范围内高层次科技工作者；提升学会自主运营能力，促进学会工作专业化和职业化。     

Future fitness and helping in social queues

Helpers in primitively eusocial and cooperatively breeding animal societies forfeit their own reproduction to rear the offspring of a queen or breeding pair, but may eventually attain breeding status themselves. Kin selection provides a widely accepted theoretical framework for understanding these societies, but differences in genetic relatedness do not explain a universal societal feature: the huge variation between individuals in helping effort. An alternative explanation for this variation lies in a fundamental trade-off faced by helpers: by working harder, they increase the indirect component of their fitness, but simultaneously decrease their own future survival and fecundity. Here, we show that individuals work less hard when they stand to lose more future fitness through working. We experimentally manipulated two components of future fitness in social queues of hover wasps (Stenogastrinae): a helper's chance of inheriting an egg-laying position, and the workforce available to rear her offspring should she inherit. After each manipulation, helpers increased or decreased their effort as appropriate to the change in expected future fitness that they experienced. Although helping provides significant indirect fitness benefits for hover wasps, our study shows that variation in the costs associated with helping is the major determinant of helping effort.     

A socially enforced signal of quality in a paper wasp

Organisms use signals of quality to communicate information about aspects of their relative phenotypic and genetic constitution. Badges of status are a subset of signals of quality that reveal information about an individual's size and dominance. In general, signals of quality require high and differential costs to remain honest (that is, prevent low-quality cheaters from exploiting any fitness benefits associated with communicating high quality). The theoretically required costs for badges of status remain controversial because the development (or 'production') of such signals often seems to be relatively cost-free. One important hypothesis is that such signals impose social (or 'maintenance') costs incurred through repeated agonistic interactions with other individuals. However, convincing empirical evidence for social costs remains elusive. Here we report social costs in a previously undescribed badge of status: the highly variable black facial patterns of female paper wasps, Polistes dominulus. Facial patterns strongly predict body size and social dominance. Moreover, in staged contests between pairs of unfamiliar wasps, subordinate wasps with experimentally altered facial features ('cheaters') received considerably more aggression from the dominant than did sham controls, indicating that facial patterns are signals and that dishonest signalling imposes social costs.     

Position in the evolution of reproductive endocrine of amphioxus,Branchiostoma belcheri

This review summarizes the recent discoveries of many authors who found that in amphioxus Hatschek’s pit is capable of synthesizing vertebrate gonadotropin-like substance, and that the content of gonadotropin-releasing hormone in the amphioxus’ body shows a positive correlation with the reproductive cycle, and that the sex steroid hormone exists in gonads. Exogenous hormones could promote gonadal development, maturation and reproductive activity in amphioxus. A possible implication might be that the reproductive activity in amphioxus is regulated by reproductive hormones like vertebrate, indicating the existence of primitive reproductive endocrine regulatory axis, brain vesicle-Hatschek’s pit-gonads axis, as compared with regulatory axis of vertebrate. It will provide a new line for establishing the position of reproductive endocrine evolution in lancelet.     

Wolbachia-induced incompatibility precedes other hybrid incompatibilities in Nasonia

Wolbachia are cytoplasmically inherited bacteria that cause a number of reproductive alterations in insects, including cytoplasmic incompatibility, an incompatibility between sperm and egg that results in loss of sperm chromosomes following fertilization. Wolbachia are estimated to infect 15-20% of all insect species, and also are common in arachnids, isopods and nematodes. Therefore, Wolbachia-induced cytoplasmic incompatibility could be an important factor promoting rapid speciation in invertebrates, although this contention is controversial. Here we show that high levels of bidirectional cytoplasmic incompatibility between two closely related species of insects (the parasitic wasps Nasonia giraulti and Nasonia longicornis) preceded the evolution of other postmating reproductive barriers. The presence of Wolbachia severely reduces the frequency of hybrid offspring in interspecies crosses. However, antibiotic curing of the insects results in production of hybrids. Furthermore, F1 and F2 hybrids are completely viable and fertile, indicating the absence of F1 and F2 hybrid breakdown. Partial interspecific sexual isolation occurs, yet it is asymmetric and incomplete. Our results indicate that Wolbachia-induced reproductive isolation occurred in the early stages of speciation in this system, before the evolution of other postmating isolating mechanisms (for example, hybrid inviability and hybrid sterility).     

Social parasitism by male-producing reproductive workers in a eusocial insect

The evolution of extreme cooperation, as found in eusocial insects (those with a worker caste), is potentially undermined by selfish reproduction among group members. In some eusocial Hymenoptera (ants, bees and wasps), workers can produce male offspring from unfertilized eggs. Kin selection theory predicts levels of worker reproduction as a function of the relatedness structure of the workers' natal colony and the colony-level costs of worker reproduction. However, the theory has been only partially successful in explaining levels of worker reproduction. Here we show that workers of a eusocial bumble bee (Bombus terrestris) enter unrelated, conspecific colonies in which they then produce adult male offspring, and that such socially parasitic workers reproduce earlier and are significantly more reproductive and aggressive than resident workers that reproduce within their own colonies. Explaining levels of worker reproduction, and hence the potential of worker selfishness to undermine the evolution of cooperation, will therefore require more than simply a consideration of the kin-selected interests of resident workers. It will also require knowledge of the full set of reproductive options available to workers, including intraspecific social parasitism.     

Post-spawning egg care by a squid

Gonatus onyx is one of the most abundant cephalopods in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and is an important prey species for a variety of vertebrate predators, but a full understanding of its life history has been hampered because spawning occurs at great depths, where observation is difficult. Here we describe post-spawning egg care, or brooding, in this deep-sea squid. Our finding is unexpected because this behaviour differs from the reproductive habits of all other known squid species.     

Tug-of-war over reproduction in a social bee

One of the main transitions in evolution is the shift from solitary organisms to societies with reproductive division of labour. Understanding social evolution requires us to determine how ecological, social and genetic factors jointly influence group stability and partitioning of reproduction between group members. Here we test the role of the three key factors predicted to influence social evolution by experimentally manipulating them in a social allodapine bee. We show that increased relatedness between nestmates results in more even reproduction among group members and a greater productivity per individual. By contrast, the degree of reproductive skew is not influenced by the opportunity for solitary breeding or by the potential benefits of cooperation. Relatedness also has a positive effect on group stability and overall productivity. These findings are in line with predictions of the tug-of-war models, in which the degree of reproductive division of labour is determined primarily by selfish competition between group members. The alternative view, where the degree of reproductive skew is the outcome of a social contract between potential breeders, was not supported by the data.     

吉林省西部草地昆虫群落组成结构

2006、2007年5月～9月,每月1次对吉林省西部草地昆虫群落进行连续性调查,共采集草地昆虫12 638头.结果表明：吉林省西部草地昆虫隶属13目99科281属368种.给出了吉林省西部草地昆虫的群落物种组成、优势昆虫类群及昆虫名录,提出了保护和利用吉林省西部草地昆虫资源的建议.     

稻纵卷叶螟迁飞现象的观察

稻纵卷叶螟ＣｎａｇｈａｌｏｃｒｏｃｉｓｍｅｄｉｎａｌｉｓＧｕｅｎｅｅ自７０年代以来上升为海南省水稻三大害虫之一．海南省澄迈县一年发生９代：第２、４、６、９代为本地虫源本地繁殖代；第５、７代为大部分外地虫源迁入代；第３、８代为本地虫源大部分迁出代．广东省阳春县一年发生７代：第１、４、６代为本地虫源，本地繁殖代；第２、５代为大部分外地虫源迁入代；第３、７代为本地虫源大部分迁出代．每当水稻正处在分蘖期迁入的世代为害较为严重．往往引起突发性猖獗为害；而迁出代则意外地为害轻微．     

Aggression by polyembryonic wasp soldiers correlates with kinship but not resource competition

Kin selection theory predicts that individuals will show less aggression and more altruism towards relatives. However, recent theoretical developments suggest that with limited dispersal, competition between relatives can override the effects of relatedness. The predicted and opposing influences of relatedness and competition are difficult to approach experimentally because conditions that increase average relatedness among individuals also tend to increase competition. Polyembryonic wasps in the family Encyrtidae are parasites whose eggs undergo clonal division to produce large broods. These insects have also evolved a caste system: some embryos in a clone develop into reproductive larvae that mature into adults, whereas others develop into sterile soldier larvae that defend siblings from competitors. In a brood from a single egg, reproductive altruism by soldiers reflects clone-level allocation to defence at the cost of reproduction, with no conflict between individuals. When multiple eggs are laid into a host, inter-clone conflicts of interest arise. Here we report that soldier aggression in Copidosoma floridanum is inversely related to the genetic relatedness of competitors but shows no correlation with the level of resource competition.     

Primitive agriculture in a social amoeba

Agriculture has been a large part of the ecological success of humans. A handful of animals, notably the fungus-growing ants, termites and ambrosia beetles, have advanced agriculture that involves dispersal and seeding of food propagules, cultivation of the crop and sustainable harvesting. More primitive examples, which could be called husbandry because they involve fewer adaptations, include marine snails farming intertidal fungi and damselfish farming algae. Recent work has shown that microorganisms are surprisingly like animals in having sophisticated behaviours such as cooperation, communication and recognition, as well as many kinds of symbiosis. Here we show that the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum has a primitive farming symbiosis that includes dispersal and prudent harvesting of the crop. About one-third of wild-collected clones engage in husbandry of bacteria. Instead of consuming all bacteria in their patch, they stop feeding early and incorporate bacteria into their fruiting bodies. They then carry bacteria during spore dispersal and can seed a new food crop, which is a major advantage if edible bacteria are lacking at the new site. However, if they arrive at sites already containing appropriate bacteria, the costs of early feeding cessation are not compensated for, which may account for the dichotomous nature of this farming symbiosis. The striking convergent evolution between bacterial husbandry in social amoebas and fungus farming in social insects makes sense because multigenerational benefits of farming go to already established kin groups.     

Nectar bat stows huge tongue in its rib cage

Bats of the subfamily Glossophaginae (family Phyllostomidae) are arguably the most specialized of mammalian nectarivores, and hundreds of neotropical plants rely on them for pollination. But flowers pollinated by bats are not known to specialize for bat subgroups (unlike flowers that have adapted to the length and curvature of hummingbird bills, for example), possibly because the mouthparts of bats do not vary much compared with the bills of birds or the probosces of insects. Here I report a spectacular exception: a recently-described nectar bat that can extend its tongue twice as far as those of related bats and is the sole pollinator of a plant with corolla tubes of matching length.     

福建省6种榕树及其传粉小蜂共生体系的比较

榕树(Ficus spp.)和榕小蜂共生体系是由宿主和共生者之间的生殖配合维系的.采用隐头花序解剖、对比观察的方法研究了福建省东北部6种榕树及其共生昆虫传粉体系的种间差异.结果表明：6种榕树花的性别分离成雌花、瘿花、雄花和两性花，植株的性表达有雌雄同株和雌性两性异株的区别，雌、瘿花有或无花柄（子房柄）单层或双层排列，雄花有散生、半集中和集中着生的分布方式，花序大小、花的数量、苞片数目、孔道苞片功能分区、出飞孔形成方式均有差异并与榕小蜂的行为相对应，每种榕树通常仅有1种传粉昆虫，6种榕树及其共生小蜂分别形成各自独立的传粉体系.显然，这种传粉体系存在丰富的种间差异性，各共生体系对传粉生物学的性状有不同的进化选择，体现了共生双方进化适合度和共生对策，维护了共生体系的稳定性和独立性.     

Mealybug beta-proteobacterial endosymbionts contain gamma-proteobacterial symbionts

Some insects have cultivated intimate relationships with mutualistic bacteria since their early evolutionary history. Most ancient 'primary' endosymbionts live within the cytoplasm of large, polyploid host cells of a specialized organ (bacteriome). Within their large, ovoid bacteriomes, mealybugs (Pseudococcidae) package the intracellular endosymbionts into 'mucus-filled' spheres, which surround the host cell nucleus and occupy most of the cytoplasm. The genesis of symbiotic spheres has not been determined, and they are structurally unlike eukaryotic cell vesicles. Recent molecular phylogenetic and fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) studies suggested that two unrelated bacterial species may share individual host cells, and that bacteria within spheres comprise these two species. Here we show that mealybug host cells do indeed harbour both beta- and gamma-subdivision Proteobacteria, but they are not co-inhabitants of the spheres. Rather, we show that the symbiotic spheres themselves are beta-proteobacterial cells. Thus, gamma-Proteobacteria live symbiotically inside beta-Proteobacteria. This is the first report, to our knowledge, of an intracellular symbiosis involving two species of bacteria.     

Risk Factors of Anxiety among Men Undergoing Assisted Reproductive Treatment in China

Anxiety is a common reaction of men undergoing assisted reproductive treatment. Our study aims to explore the risk factors of anxiety among men receiving assisted reproductive treatment. We found that the men who have primary school education were more anxious than those who have higher level education including junior middle school(X~2=13.01, P0.01), senior middle school(X~2=5.63, P=0.02), junior college(X~2=6.94, P=0.01) and higher education(X~2=13.78, P0.01). Moreover, the men who have severe financial burden were more anxious than the men who have mild(X~2=9.54, P0.01) or moderate(X~2=6.30, P=0.01) burden. For trait anxiety, the independent risk factor was financial burden of treatment. Therefore, we suggest that for men who prepare to receive assisted reproductive treatment, especially for men who had financial burden for treatment or only received primary education, pre-treatment counseling or psychological intervention should be provided.