Bumblebee worker bees are not unable to mate for life, new discoveries challenge traditional views
Recently, the Innovation Team of Pollinated Insect Reproduction and Pollination Application at the Bee Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, in collaboration with domestic and foreign universities and enterprises, found that worker bees of bumblebees are not unable to mate for life. This study challenges the lifelong inability to mate determined by the emergence of superorganic worker bees, uncovering a timeless mystery in the evolution of superorganic bumblebee level organisms, and is a significant leap in understanding superorganic evolution. The relevant research paper was recently published in Nature Communications.
The superorganic bumblebee belongs to the intermediate differentiation group of social insects, and one of its main evolutionary laws is that the queen determined by the pre emergence stage is destined to mate, while worker bees cannot mate for life. Worker bees and ants in superorganic organisms such as bees and ants are unable to mate due to the loss of the structure of the seminal vesicles or the preservation of only the degenerated structure of the seminal vesicles. But the worker bees of bumblebees still retain intact seminal vesicles but cannot mate for life, which has been an unsolved mystery in the academic community for a long time.
Li Jilian, the corresponding author of the paper and a researcher at the Bee Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, introduced that the research team first verified through artificial insemination technology that the seminal vesicles of bumblebee worker bees still have reproductive functions such as storing sperm, releasing sperm, and promoting egg fertilization. Through transcriptome technology, it was confirmed that their gene expression patterns before and after insemination are similar to those of queen bees, and bumblebee worker bees retain reproductive characteristics similar to queen bees, which can mate and create bee colonies. Secondly, research has found that isolated bumblebee worker bees after emergence have mating ability, which means that the mating ability of worker bees is not lost before emergence, but only after being suppressed by social factors of the bee colony. Researchers have also verified through semi field experiments that bumblebee worker bees with lost queen colonies have the opportunity to mate and reproduce female offspring, which may be a reproductive strategy to maintain colony development and cope with early loss of queen bees.
Experts say that these research findings challenge the view that worker bees in superorganisms cannot mate for life, and more importantly, provide a new perspective for a comprehensive understanding of superorganism evolution and new ideas for the protection of endangered bumblebee species.