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Blacher, Pierre, Huggins, Timothy J. and Bourke, Andrew F. G. 
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5891-8816
(2017)
Evolution of ageing, costs of reproduction and the fecundity-longevity trade-off in eusocial insects.
Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 284 (1858).
ISSN 0962-8452
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Abstract
Eusocial insects provide special opportunities to elucidate the evolution of ageing as queens have apparently evaded costs of reproduction and reversed the fecundity-longevity trade-off generally observed in non-social organisms. But how reproduction affects longevity in eusocial insects has rarely been tested experimentally. In this study, we took advantage of the reproductive plasticity of workers to test the causal role of reproduction in determining longevity in eusocial insects. Using the eusocial bumblebee Bombus terrestris, we found that, in whole colonies, in which workers could freely 'choose' whether to become reproductive, workers' level of ovarian activation was significantly positively associated with longevity and ovary-active workers significantly outlived ovary-inactive workers. By contrast, when reproductivity was experimentally induced in randomly-selected workers, thereby decoupling it from other traits, workers' level of ovarian activation was significantly negatively associated with longevity and ovary-active workers were significantly less long-lived than ovary-inactive workers. These findings show that workers experience costs of reproduction and suggest that intrinsically high-quality individuals can overcome these costs. They also raise the possibility that eusocial insect queens exhibit condition-dependent longevity and hence call into question whether eusociality entails a truly reversed fecundity-longevity trade-off involving a fundamental remodelling of conserved genetic and endocrine networks underpinning ageing.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | bee,lifespan,life history,senescence,social insect |
| Faculty \ School: | Faculty of Science > School of Biological Sciences Faculty of Science |
| UEA Research Groups: | Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Organisms and the Environment |
| Related URLs: | |
| Depositing User: | Pure Connector |
| Date Deposited: | 14 Jul 2017 05:06 |
| Last Modified: | 13 May 2023 00:11 |
| URI: | https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/64111 |
| DOI: | 10.1098/rspb.2017.0380 |
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