Stylops
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Females of the insect order Strepsiptera are known to be traumatically inseminated. Traumatic insemination is the process of insemination by sperm transfer through a wound inflicted by the male in the female's integument, rather than by the male transferring sperm through the female's genital opening. Females fertilised by traumatic insemination are likely to exhibit morphological adaptations that help them to reduce the fitness costs associated with the integument wounding. One such adaptation is the presence of a paragenital organ. It has been described in traumatically inseminated bugs of the superfamily Cimicoidea and in species of the Strepsiptera genus Stylops. Although the paragenital organ appears to play a critical role in the mating biology of Stylops species, its phylogenetic roots are unknown. Here, we show that the paragenital organ in Strepsiptera may be an autapomorphy of the family Stylopidae, where we found it present in all species of the genera we studied (i.e., Eurystylops, Halictoxenos, Hylecthrus, Kinzelbachus). Our data thus refute the notion that the paragenital organ in Strepsiptera is exclusive to the genus Stylops. Integument relative thickness assessment based on μCT data revealed that regardless of the presence of a paragenital organ in Strepsiptera, penetration sites in the female's integument are thickened relative to control sites. In addition, we found evidence for the lateral processes of the secondary larval exuvia stabilising the paragenital organ. Our study contributes to the basic understanding of the evolution and the function of the paragenital organ in Strepsiptera and suggests potentially important morphological characters for a species-level phylogeny of the Stylopidae.
A female-produced sex pheromone of Stylops muelleri was identified as an unusually branched saturated aldehyde (9R)-3,5-syn-3,5,9-trimethyldodecanal. We named it stylopsal. Its structure was established by using mass spectrometry, infrared spectroscopy, and organic synthesis of candidate compounds. The synthetic standard of (9R)-3,5-syn-3,5,9-trimethyldodecanal gave identical chromatographic and mass spectrometric data as the natural pheromone and also was active in electroantennographic and behavioral assays. The female fat body lipids contained the corresponding fatty acid, indicating a possible link between lipid metabolism and the pheromone biosynthesis.
- MeSH
- aldehydy analýza chemická syntéza farmakologie MeSH
- hmyz chemie fyziologie MeSH
- plynová chromatografie s hmotnostně spektrometrickou detekcí MeSH
- sexuální chování zvířat účinky léků fyziologie MeSH
- sexuální lákadla chemie MeSH
- spektrofotometrie infračervená MeSH
- stereoizomerie MeSH
- tukové těleso chemie MeSH
- zvířata MeSH
- Check Tag
- mužské pohlaví MeSH
- ženské pohlaví MeSH
- zvířata MeSH
- Publikační typ
- časopisecké články MeSH
- práce podpořená grantem MeSH
