Diet quantity influences caste determination in honeybees (Apis mellifera).

ABSTRACT: In species that care for their young, provisioning has profound effects on offspring fitness. Provisioning is important in honeybees because nutritional cues determine whether a female becomes a reproductive queen or sterile worker. A qualitative difference between the larval diets of queens and workers is thought to drive this divergence; however, no single compound seems to be responsible. Diet quantity may have a role during honeybee caste determination yet has never been formally studied. Our goal was to determine the relative contributions of diet quantity and quality to queen development. Larvae were reared in vitro on nine diets varying in the amount of royal jelly and sugars, which were fed to larvae in eight different quantities. For the middle diet, an ad libitum quantity

SUBMITTER: Slater GP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7287363 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature