Conserved queen pheromones in bumblebees: A reply to Amsalem et al.

Luke Holman; Jelle S van Zweden; Ricardo Caliari Oliveira; Annette van Oystaeyen; Tom Wenseleers

doi:10.7287/peerj.preprints.2003v1

Conserved queen pheromones in bumblebees: A reply to Amsalem et al.

Luke Holman ¹, Jelle S van Zweden², Ricardo Caliari Oliveira², Annette van Oystaeyen³, Tom Wenseleers²

1 School of Biosciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

2 Laboratory of Socioecology and Social Evolution, Zoological Institute, University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

3 Research and development, Biobest Belgium NV, Westerlo, Belgium

DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.2003v1

Published: 2016-04-26
Accepted: 2016-04-26

Subject Areas: Animal Behavior, Evolutionary Studies
Keywords: Eusociality, Cuticular hydrocarbons, Fertility signals, Reproductive division of labour

Copyright: © 2016 Holman et al.
Licence: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.

Cite this article: Holman L, van Zweden JS, Caliari Oliveira R, van Oystaeyen A, Wenseleers T. 2016. Conserved queen pheromones in bumblebees: A reply to Amsalem et al. PeerJ Preprints 4:e2003v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.2003v1

Abstract

In a recent study, Amsalem et al. performed experiments with Bombus impatiens bumblebees to test the hypothesis that saturated cuticular hydrocarbons are evolutionarily conserved signals used to regulate reproductive division of labour in many Hymenopteran social insects. They concluded that the cuticular hydrocarbon pentacosane (C₂₅), previously identified as a queen pheromone in a congeneric bumblebee, does not affect worker reproduction in B. impatiens. Here we identify some significant shortcomings of Amsalem et al.’s study that make its conclusions unreliable. In particular, inappropriate statistical tests were used, and a reanalysis of their dataset found that C₂₅ substantially reduced and delayed worker egg laying in B. impatiens. Additionally, the study’s low sample sizes (mean n per treatment = 13.6, range: 4-23) give it low power, not 99% power as claimed, meaning that some its non-significant results may be false negatives. Additionally, several confounding effects may have affected the results of both experimental manipulations in the study

Author Comment

This article is a commentary on Amsalem et al. 2015 Proc B (doi: 10.1098/rspb.2015.1800). Hopefully this critique will assist our colleagues in weighing up the evidence for and against the hypothesis under test.