SummaryQueens were reared from eggs and from larvae 1, 2, 3 and 4 days old. They were then mated either naturally or instrumentally with 1 to 2×8 mm3 of semen. Each increase of 1 day in the age of brood grafted decreased not only the body weight, the size of the spermatheca and the number of ovarioles of the virgin queens, but also the number of spermatozoa in the spermathecae of naturally and instrumentally inseminated queens. A given amount of semen injected into the oviducts resulted in different numbers but similar concentrations of spermatozoa in spermathecae of different sizes. A smaller number of spermatozoa entered the smaller spermathecae, despite a surplus of semen in the oviducts and plenty of space in the spermathecae. Correlation coefficients between different characters were significant only when queens reared from brood of different age were compared. Partial correlations showed that a direct correlation existed between the age of grafted brood and the number of spermatozoa in the spermathecae of mated queens.The process of weighing virgin queens therefore helps in their selection.
Understanding the reproductive potential (“quality”) of queens bees can provide valuable insights into factors that influence colony phenotype. We assayed queens from various commercial sources for various measures of potential queen quality, including their physical characters (such as their degree of parasitism), insemination number (stored sperm counts), and effective paternity frequency (number of drone fathers among their offspring). We found significant variation in the physical, insemination, and mating quality of commercially produced queens, and we detected significant correlations within and among these various measures. Overall, the queens were sufficiently inseminated (3.99 ± 1.504 million sperm) and mated with an appropriate number of drones (effective paternity frequency: 16.0 ± 9.48). Importantly, very few of the queens were parasitized by tracheal mites and none were found with either Nosema species. These findings suggest possible mechanisms for assessing the potential fitness of honey bee queens without the need for destructive sampling.
In many species, females store sperm between copulation and egg fertilization, but the consequences of sperm storage and patterns of sperm use for female life history and reproductive success have not been investigated in great detail. In hymenopteran insect societies (ants, bees, wasps), reproduction is usually monopolized by one or relatively few queens, who mate only during a brief period early in life and store sperm for later use. The queens of some ants are particularly long-lived and have the potential to produce millions of offspring during their life. To do so, queens store many sperm cells, and this sperm must remain viable throughout the years of storage. Queens should also be under strong selection to use stored sperm prudently when fertilizing eggs. We used the leaf-cutter ant Atta colombica to investigate the dynamics of sperm use during egg fertilization. We show that queens are able to fertilize close to 100 per cent of the eggs and that the average sperm use per egg is very low, but increases with queen age. The robustness of stored sperm was found to decrease with years of storage, signifying that senescence affects sperm either directly or indirectly via the declining glandular secretions or deteriorating sperm-storage organs. We evaluate our findings with a heuristic model, which suggests that the average queen has sperm for almost 9 years of normal colony development. We discuss the extent to which leaf-cutter ant queens have been able to optimize their sperm expenditure and infer that our observed averages of sperm number, sperm robustness and sperm use are consistent with sperm depletion being a significant cause of mortality of mature colonies of Atta leaf-cutter ants.
It's Saturday night in Key West and the Girlie Show is about to begin at the 801 Cabaret. The girls have been outside on the sidewalk all evening, seducing anyone who walks by into coming in for the show. The club itself is packed tonight and smoke has filled the room. When the lights finally go down, statuesque blondes and stunning brunettes clad in black leather miniskirts, stiletto heels, and see-through lingerie take the stage. En Vogue's Free Your Mind blares on the house stereos. The crowd roars in approval. In this lively book, Leila J. Rupp and Verta Taylor take us on an entertaining tour through one of America's most overlooked subcultures: the world of the drag queen. They provide a backstage pass into the lives of the 801 Girls, the troupe of queens who perform nightly at the 801 for tourists and locals. Weaving together their fascinating life stories, their lavish costumes and eclectic music, their flamboyance and bitchiness, the authors explore how drag queens smash the boundaries between gay and straight, man and woman, to make people think more deeply and realistically about sex in America today. They also consider how the queens create a space that encourages camaraderie and acceptance among everyday people, no matter what their sexual preferences might be. Based on countless interviews with more than a dozen drag queens, more than three years of attendance at their outrageous performances and even the author's participation in the shows themselves, Drag Queens at the 801 Cabaret is a witty and poignant portrait of gay life and culture. When they said life is a cabaret, they clearly meant the 801.
Queen health is crucial to colony survival of social bees. Recently, queen failure has been proposed to be a major driver of managed honey bee colony losses, yet few data exist concerning effects of environmental stressors on queens. Here we demonstrate for the first time that exposure to field-realistic concentrations of neonicotinoid pesticides during development can severely affect queens of western honey bees (Apis mellifera). In pesticide-exposed queens, reproductive anatomy (ovaries) and physiology (spermathecal-stored sperm quality and quantity), rather than flight behaviour, were compromised and likely corresponded to reduced queen success (alive and producing worker offspring). This study highlights the detriments of neonicotinoids to queens of environmentally and economically important social bees, and further strengthens the need for stringent risk assessments to safeguard biodiversity and ecosystem services that are vulnerable to these substances.
Fossils from Queensland suggest a newly recognized marsupial order may have survived in Australia for around 35 million years, rewriting part of the story of how the continent's unique mammals evolved。 The discovery challenges the idea that Australia's marsupials all came from a single straightforward ancestral lineage
A new review highlights exciting progress in atomically thin quantum materials where light and magnetism work together in ways never before possible。 In these materials, light-generated excitons can interact directly with magnetic behavior, creating opportunities to control magnetic states using light alone。 Scientists believe this could pave the w
Scientists at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore have discovered a surprisingly simple way to create exotic light structures called optical skyrmions using a 200-year-old optical effect known as the Poisson spot。 Instead of relying on expensive, highly engineered materials, they simply shine a laser at a tiny circular disc, producing sta
NatGeo's Pompeii: Out of Time fuses historical fact and imagination to bring city's last 24 hours to life
Researchers discovered a proton-assisted mechanism that greatly improves how triplet energy moves between quantum dots and nearby molecules。 The proton briefly shifts position, helps coordinate electron movement, and then returns to where it started。 This quantum-driven shuttle could offer a powerful new way to tune solar cells, lasers, and catalyt
Researchers have created cosmic dust from scratch by recreating space-like conditions inside glass tubes。 The dust contains complex carbon-rich molecules built from elements essential to life and produces infrared signals similar to real material found in space。 By studying these laboratory samples, scientists can explore how organic chemistry unfo
Anthropic blocks authors from opting out of $1。5B settlement at last minute
NASA's Perseverance rover has reached an impressive new milestone on Mars, completing the equivalent of a full marathon by driving 26。2 miles (42。195 kilometers) across the Red Planet
Four nearby white dwarf stars have been discovered hiding in plain sight beside brighter red dwarf companions。 Hubble's ultraviolet observations finally revealed the long-hidden stellar remnants, including one just 25 light-years away that took nearly three decades to confirm。 The findings match long-standing predictions and suggest our corner of t
A new theoretical study offers a possible explanation for how the Universe can grow more complex without violating the second law of thermodynamics。 Using a quantum gravity framework called Gravity from Entropy, mathematician Ginestra Bianconi found that the Universe’s total entropy may rise as space expands, even while entropy within each unit of
A new AI-powered blood test could give people a remarkably early warning of serious heart and circulation problems。 Developed by researchers at the University of Hong Kong, CardiOmicScore analyzes thousands of proteins and metabolites to estimate the risk of six major cardiovascular diseases, including heart attack, stroke, heart failure, and atria
Researchers have achieved a major milestone by creating a long-sought two-dimensional quantum material and confirming its unusual conducting edge states。 The ability to control these states through strain could make the material a promising platform for future room-temperature quantum electronics