Figure 1

The effects of mating on queen behavior and physiology. (a) Non-virgin queens were allowed only a single mating flight. All subsequent flight attempts were monitored. None of the queens initiating egg-laying attempted to fly following mating. (b) Ovary development scores ranging from 1 (no development) to 4 (fully developed with mature eggs present) were assigned to each queen. Laying queens all had fully-developed ovaries with mature eggs. Mated queens initiated ovary development while virgins did not (Kruskall-Wallis rank sums, p = 0.0016). Of the mated queens, 1/5 had an ovary development score of 2, 1/5 had a score of 2.5, 2/5 received a score of 3, and 1/5 had a score of 4. (c) Sperm counts demonstrated that mated queens were intermediate for sperm storage in their spermathecae (Kruskall-Wallis rank sums, p = 0.004, nonparametric Tukey-Kramer HSD, p < 0.05). (d) Vitellogenin levels in the fat bodies were significantly different between virgins and laying queens (Kruskall-Wallis rank sums, p = 0.018, nonparametric Tukey-Kramer HSD, p < 0.05). Abdominal vitellogenin levels were positively correlated with ovary development (R² = 0.46, p = 0.006).