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Chemical Senses Advance Access originally published online on July 21, 2007
Chemical Senses 2007 32(8):795-802; doi:10.1093/chemse/bjm047
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Workers of a Polistes Paper Wasp Detect the Presence of Their Queen by Chemical Cues

Leonardo Dapporto1, Antonio Santini1, Francesca R. Dani2 and Stefano Turillazzi1,2

1 Dipartimento di Biologia Animale e Genetica "Leo Pardi," Università di Firenze, via Romana 17, 50125 Firenze, Italy 2 Centro Interdipartimentale di Spettrometria di Massa, Università di Firenze, Vle Pieraccini 6, 50139 Firenze, Italy

Correspondence to be sent to: Leonardo Dapporto, Dipartimento di Biologia Animale e Genetica "Leo Pardi," Università di Firenze, via Romana 17, 50125 Firenze, Italy. e-mail: leondap{at}gmail.com


  Abstract

Differences in long-chain hydrocarbon mixtures among reproductive and nonreproductive individuals have been often revealed in social insects. However, very few papers demonstrated that these signatures actually act as contact pheromones used by nonreproductive to recognize the presence of a related queen in the colony. Cuticular and glandular hydrocarbons of Polistes paper wasps have been extensively studied, but, until now, the perception and recognition of such cues was not demonstrated. In this paper, we show, for the first time in Vespidae, that Polistes gallicus workers distinguish nestmates from alien individuals and queens from workers by the hydrocarbon mixtures of the Van der Vecht organ secretion (VVS). We also demonstrated that stroking behavior (a peculiar behavior of Polistes by which queens probably lay VVS on the nest) acts as an inhibitor of ovarian development in workers.

Key words: bioassay, chemical communication, gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, hydrocarbons, queen recognition, Van der Vecht organ

Accepted 25 June 2007


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