Male soldiers are functional in the Japanese strain of a polyembryonic wasp

Abstract

Polyembryonic parasitoids clonally produce sterile soldier larvae in both sexes. Female soldier larvae of Copidosoma floridanum defend their siblings and host resources against heterospecific competitors as well as conspecific male embryos that results in female biased sex ratios. However, the male soldiers of the USA strain exhibit no aggressive behaviors against them, suspected to be a secondary loss of male defense function in the course of evolution. From vitro and vivo experiments, we have found functional male soldiers in the Japanese strain of C. floridanum. In vitro experiments, male soldiers exhibit aggressions against four larval competitors, though aggressiveness is much weaker than that of female soldiers. In vivo experiments, heterospecific competitors are equivocally excluded in both male and female broods. Our findings support the idea that male soldiers have evolved primarily to defend against heterospecific competitors. Further experiments against conspecific embryos may be able to confirm this hypothesis.