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Morphology, Chemistry and Function of the Postpharyngeal Gland in the South American Digger Wasps Trachypus boharti and Trachypus elongatus

Microbes pose severe threats to animals as competitors or pathogens and strongly affect the evolution of life history traits like parental care. Females of the European beewolf Philanthus triangulum, a solitary digger wasp, provision their offspring with paralyzed honeybees and embalm them with the...

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Autores principales: Herzner, Gudrun, Kaltenpoth, Martin, Poettinger, Theodor, Weiss, Katharina, Koedam, Dirk, Kroiss, Johannes, Strohm, Erhard
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3855771/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24324830
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0082780
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author Herzner, Gudrun
Kaltenpoth, Martin
Poettinger, Theodor
Weiss, Katharina
Koedam, Dirk
Kroiss, Johannes
Strohm, Erhard
author_facet Herzner, Gudrun
Kaltenpoth, Martin
Poettinger, Theodor
Weiss, Katharina
Koedam, Dirk
Kroiss, Johannes
Strohm, Erhard
author_sort Herzner, Gudrun
collection PubMed
description Microbes pose severe threats to animals as competitors or pathogens and strongly affect the evolution of life history traits like parental care. Females of the European beewolf Philanthus triangulum, a solitary digger wasp, provision their offspring with paralyzed honeybees and embalm them with the secretion from large postpharyngeal glands (PPG) that contain mainly unsaturated hydrocarbons. This coating changes the physico-chemical properties of the prey surface, causes a reduction of water condensation and retards growth of mold fungi. Here we examined the closely related South American genus Trachypus, which shows a life-history similar to Philanthus. We investigated whether Trachypus spp. also possess PPGs and embalm larval provisions. Using histological methods and 3D reconstructions we show that Trachypus boharti and T. elongatus possess PPGs that are similar to P. triangulum but somewhat smaller. The ultrastructure of the gland epithelium suggests that the gland content is at least partly sequestered from the hemolymph. Chemical analyses using gas chromatography / mass spectrometry revealed that both the cuticle and PPGs of Trachypus contain mainly unsaturated long-chain hydrocarbons. The gland of T. boharti additionally contains long-chain ketones. The hydrocarbons from the PPG of T. elongatus occurred on prey bees excavated from nests in the field but not on conspecific control bees. While the embalming only slightly elevated the amount of hydrocarbons on prey bees, the proportion of unsaturated hydrocarbons, which is crucial for the antifungal effect, was significantly increased. The Trachypus species under study possess PPGs that are very similar to the PPG of P. triangulum with regard to morphology, ultrastructure and chemistry. Moreover, we provide clear evidence that T. elongatus females embalm their prey, presumably as a means of prey preservation. The observed differences among Trachypus and Philanthus in gland size and prey embalming may have evolved in response to divergent ecological conditions.
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spelling pubmed-38557712013-12-09 Morphology, Chemistry and Function of the Postpharyngeal Gland in the South American Digger Wasps Trachypus boharti and Trachypus elongatus Herzner, Gudrun Kaltenpoth, Martin Poettinger, Theodor Weiss, Katharina Koedam, Dirk Kroiss, Johannes Strohm, Erhard PLoS One Research Article Microbes pose severe threats to animals as competitors or pathogens and strongly affect the evolution of life history traits like parental care. Females of the European beewolf Philanthus triangulum, a solitary digger wasp, provision their offspring with paralyzed honeybees and embalm them with the secretion from large postpharyngeal glands (PPG) that contain mainly unsaturated hydrocarbons. This coating changes the physico-chemical properties of the prey surface, causes a reduction of water condensation and retards growth of mold fungi. Here we examined the closely related South American genus Trachypus, which shows a life-history similar to Philanthus. We investigated whether Trachypus spp. also possess PPGs and embalm larval provisions. Using histological methods and 3D reconstructions we show that Trachypus boharti and T. elongatus possess PPGs that are similar to P. triangulum but somewhat smaller. The ultrastructure of the gland epithelium suggests that the gland content is at least partly sequestered from the hemolymph. Chemical analyses using gas chromatography / mass spectrometry revealed that both the cuticle and PPGs of Trachypus contain mainly unsaturated long-chain hydrocarbons. The gland of T. boharti additionally contains long-chain ketones. The hydrocarbons from the PPG of T. elongatus occurred on prey bees excavated from nests in the field but not on conspecific control bees. While the embalming only slightly elevated the amount of hydrocarbons on prey bees, the proportion of unsaturated hydrocarbons, which is crucial for the antifungal effect, was significantly increased. The Trachypus species under study possess PPGs that are very similar to the PPG of P. triangulum with regard to morphology, ultrastructure and chemistry. Moreover, we provide clear evidence that T. elongatus females embalm their prey, presumably as a means of prey preservation. The observed differences among Trachypus and Philanthus in gland size and prey embalming may have evolved in response to divergent ecological conditions. Public Library of Science 2013-12-06 /pmc/articles/PMC3855771/ /pubmed/24324830 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0082780 Text en © 2013 Herzner et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Herzner, Gudrun
Kaltenpoth, Martin
Poettinger, Theodor
Weiss, Katharina
Koedam, Dirk
Kroiss, Johannes
Strohm, Erhard
Morphology, Chemistry and Function of the Postpharyngeal Gland in the South American Digger Wasps Trachypus boharti and Trachypus elongatus
title Morphology, Chemistry and Function of the Postpharyngeal Gland in the South American Digger Wasps Trachypus boharti and Trachypus elongatus
title_full Morphology, Chemistry and Function of the Postpharyngeal Gland in the South American Digger Wasps Trachypus boharti and Trachypus elongatus
title_fullStr Morphology, Chemistry and Function of the Postpharyngeal Gland in the South American Digger Wasps Trachypus boharti and Trachypus elongatus
title_full_unstemmed Morphology, Chemistry and Function of the Postpharyngeal Gland in the South American Digger Wasps Trachypus boharti and Trachypus elongatus
title_short Morphology, Chemistry and Function of the Postpharyngeal Gland in the South American Digger Wasps Trachypus boharti and Trachypus elongatus
title_sort morphology, chemistry and function of the postpharyngeal gland in the south american digger wasps trachypus boharti and trachypus elongatus
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3855771/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24324830
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0082780
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