Orientador: Valmir Fadel / Banca: Claudia Munte / Banca: João Ruggiero Neto / Resumo: Os venenos de vespas socias são ricos em peptídeos biologicamente ativos que causam alguns males ao ser humano como: dores prolongadas, edema, eritema, reações alérgicas e sistêmicas. Possuem em sua composição vários tipos de aminas biogênicas, peptídeos e proteínas. Dentre eles, o que chama mais atenção na atividade farmacológica do veneno são os peptídeos policatiônicos. São diversas as atividades desses peptídeos como: neurotoxicidade, hemólise, liberação de histamina de mastócitos e antibatericida. Neste trabalho, foram estudados peptídeos catiônicos da família Polybine, sintetizados pelo Departamento de Biologia, Unesp, Rio Claro-SP. Os peptídeos Polybine I e II foram sintetizados na forma acetilada e não-acetilada para o estudo detalhado da sua estrutura. Com este objetivo, utilizamos as técnicas de Dicroísmo Circular (CD), para uma análise da estrutura secundária da amostra e espectroscopia de Ressonância Magnética Nuclear (RMN) para o estudo da estrutura tridimensional do peptídeo em solução. / Abstract: Social wasp venoms are rich of biologically active peptides that may cause some malady to human such as prolonged pains, edema, erythema, allergies and systemic reactions. They have, in its composition, many kinds of biogenic amines, series of polycationics peptides and proteins. Among them, the most interesting thing in pharmacological activity are the polycationics peptides. These peptides show several activities like neurotoxicity, hemolytic activity, histamine releasing activity and antimicrobial activity. In this project, cationic peptides of the Polybine family synthesized by the Department of Biology, CEIS/IBRC, UNESP, Rio Claro, SP were studied. The cationic peptides Polybine I and II were synthesized in acetylad and non-acetylad forms to the detailed study of the structure. This way, CD spectroscopy were performed to analyze secondary structure of the sample and, to analyze treedimension structure, NMR spectroscopy were used. / Mestre

The effects of food quantity on the morphology and development of the paper wasp Polistes metricus Say are studied, and experimental results are compared with predictions of the parental manipulation hypothesis. Food deprivation led to smaller female offspring. By hand feeding larvae we used a technique that counteracts the queen's hypothesized ability to restrict food provisioning. Hand feeding larvae did not result in larger offspring, but their abdomen was wider and heavier and the hand-fed wasps survived longer in a cold test. We infer that hand-fed colonies produced more gynes and fewer workers than did control colonies. Results of a restricted nourishment treatment do not support the differential feeding hypothesis, because in fasting colonies the emergence of all larvae was delayed by a month, and we did not detect discriminatory feeding of particular larvae for faster emergence. Although fasting colonies produced fewer offspring, the sex ratio did not show significant differences from the other groups. These data suggest that Polistes metricus colonies are partly able to respond to different nutritional conditions by allocating excess food to increase the number of gynes at the expense of workers.

As sociedades de vespas da tribo Epiponini caracterizam-se pela variação no número de rainhas durante o ciclo colonial, o que implica na ocorrência cíclica de muitas rainhas (poliginia), poucas (oligoginia) e até uma rainha (monoginia). Durante as primeiras fases do ciclo colonial existe um número maior de rainhas, mas conforme a colônia cresce, o número de rainhas diminui. Os Epiponini também são caracterizados pela complexidade morfológica e as síndromes de diferenciação de castas. Entretanto, para algumas espécies dentro dos Polistinae, a única forma de separar as fêmeas reprodutoras das não reprodutoras é pelo comportamento ou pelo grau de desenvolvimento dos ovários. O estudo do comportamento e as interações sociais junto com os estudos morfométricos podem ajudar no entendimento da evolução da complexidade encontrada dentro dos Epiponini. Por isso o objetivo deste trabalho é descrever o comportamento das rainhas e operárias em Metapolybia docilis, e suas interações. Foram realizadas observações individuais do comportamento das rainhas e operárias previamente marcadas de quatro colônias de M. docilis. Foi feito um catálogo dos atos comportamentais observados com maior frequência. Para as rainhas os comportamentos incluíam tanto displays como comportamentos relacionados às necessidades básicas como alimentação e higiene, nas operárias os comportamentos incluíam principalmente trabalhos de manutenção do ninho e policiamento. Para realizar as análises morfométricas todos os indivíduos das colônias C1, C2 e C3 foram coletados, foi determinada a idade dos indivíduos da colônia e oito medidas corporais externas foram tomadas de uma amostra de 50 operárias e de todas as rainhas das colônias. A colônia C1 estava em Fase Matura, a colônia C2 em Fase de Pré- Enxameagem, as colônias C3 e C4 em Fase de Estabelecimento. Os comportamentos realizados com maior frequência pelas rainhas das quatro colônias foram: curvar o abdômen (CA), dança de display (DD), inspeção de célula (IC), trofalaxia (Tx) e auto-limpeza (Limp). Os comportamentos realizados com maior frequência pelas operárias foram IC e Tx. O comportamento CA provavelmente é um comportamento display de dominância feito pelas rainhas e o comportamento DD provavelmente está ligado a interações competitivas ou de dominância entre as fêmeas das colônias. Não foi encontrada diferenciação morfológica significativa entre rainhas e operárias de M. docilis para as colônias C2 e C3, mas sim para a colônia C1. Dentro das colônias estudadas o controle na reprodução das fêmeas é feito mediante o comportamento e não por manipulação larval. As operárias e as rainhas testam a capacidade reprodutiva das outras rainhas mediante displays de dominância não agressivos para decidir que fêmeas continuaram encarregando-se de produzir novos indivíduos. As operárias possivelmente controlam a reprodução (mediante o policiamento de ovos), seleção das rainhas, e todos os outros aspectos dentro da colônia explorando o ambiente e as necessidades do ninho. / Epiponini wasps societies are characterized by the alternation in the number of queens from many (polygyny) to few queens (olygyny) or even one (monogyny) during the colony cycle. When the colony is in the growing phase there are many queens, but as colony grows queen number decreases and new queens will be produced only when queen number is close to one (monygyny). Epiponines wasps are also characterized by the complexity of the morphological caste syndromes. However, in some Epiponini species the only way to separate reproductives from not reproductives is by behavioral acts or by the degree of ovarian development. The study of behavior and social interactions, associated with morphometric studies, could help to better understand the evolution and complexity found within the Epiponini. We studied and described behavioral acts and interactions between queens and workers in Metapolybia docilis. We performed direct and indirect (video) observations of individual behavior of previously marked queens and workers from four M. docilis colonies. We catalogued the most frequently observed behavioral acts: for queens these behaviors included displays and basic need behaviors such as feeding and hygiene; for workers they included nest maintenance and policing behaviors. All the individuals from colonies C1, C2 and C3 were collected to perform a morphometric analysis and age determination by taking eight external body measurements from a 50 workers sample and from all the queens of the colonies. Colony C1 was in an Emergence phase, colony C2 in a pre-swarming phase, colonies C3 and C4 in a pre-emergence phase. Most frequently behaviors made by queens were bending abdomen (BA), dance display (DD), cell inspection (CI), trofalaxis (Tx) and grooming (G). Most frequently behaviors made by workers were IC and Tx. Bending abdomen (BA) is probably a dominance display made by queens, and dance display (DD) was probably a test behavior made by workers and queens to test another queens. For colonies C2 and C3 there is no morphological differences between queens and workers, but there is a slight difference for colony C1. Within the colonies, the reproduction control is performed by behavior and not by larval manipulation because we did not found morphological differences between castes. Workers and queens tested the reproductive capacity of the queens by non aggressive dominance displays in order to select which females perform the reproduction work in the colony. Workers probably control the reproduction (by worker policing on the eggs laid), queen selection and all the others tasks on the colony by scanning the environment and the needs of the colony.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:22:55Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2006-06-09Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:47:18Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 aguiar_mb_me_sjrp.pdf: 1374388 bytes, checksum: 3f0881d7dfbe0cb771b8a1ffb4572604 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Os venenos de vespas socias são ricos em peptídeos biologicamente ativos que causam alguns males ao ser humano como: dores prolongadas, edema, eritema, reações alérgicas e sistêmicas. Possuem em sua composição vários tipos de aminas biogênicas, peptídeos e proteínas. Dentre eles, o que chama mais atenção na atividade farmacológica do veneno são os peptídeos policatiônicos. São diversas as atividades desses peptídeos como: neurotoxicidade, hemólise, liberação de histamina de mastócitos e antibatericida. Neste trabalho, foram estudados peptídeos catiônicos da família Polybine, sintetizados pelo Departamento de Biologia, Unesp, Rio Claro-SP. Os peptídeos Polybine I e II foram sintetizados na forma acetilada e não-acetilada para o estudo detalhado da sua estrutura. Com este objetivo, utilizamos as técnicas de Dicroísmo Circular (CD), para uma análise da estrutura secundária da amostra e espectroscopia de Ressonância Magnética Nuclear (RMN) para o estudo da estrutura tridimensional do peptídeo em solução. / Social wasp venoms are rich of biologically active peptides that may cause some malady to human such as prolonged pains, edema, erythema, allergies and systemic reactions. They have, in its composition, many kinds of biogenic amines, series of polycationics peptides and proteins. Among them, the most interesting thing in pharmacological activity are the polycationics peptides. These peptides show several activities like neurotoxicity, hemolytic activity, histamine releasing activity and antimicrobial activity. In this project, cationic peptides of the Polybine family synthesized by the Department of Biology, CEIS/IBRC, UNESP, Rio Claro, SP were studied. The cationic peptides Polybine I and II were synthesized in acetylad and non-acetylad forms to the detailed study of the structure. This way, CD spectroscopy were performed to analyze secondary structure of the sample and, to analyze treedimension structure, NMR spectroscopy were used.

As sociedades de vespas da tribo Epiponini caracterizam-se pela variação no número de rainhas durante o ciclo colonial, o que implica na ocorrência cíclica de muitas rainhas (poliginia), poucas (oligoginia) e até uma rainha (monoginia). Durante as primeiras fases do ciclo colonial existe um número maior de rainhas, mas conforme a colônia cresce, o número de rainhas diminui. Os Epiponini também são caracterizados pela complexidade morfológica e as síndromes de diferenciação de castas. Entretanto, para algumas espécies dentro dos Polistinae, a única forma de separar as fêmeas reprodutoras das não reprodutoras é pelo comportamento ou pelo grau de desenvolvimento dos ovários. O estudo do comportamento e as interações sociais junto com os estudos morfométricos podem ajudar no entendimento da evolução da complexidade encontrada dentro dos Epiponini. Por isso o objetivo deste trabalho é descrever o comportamento das rainhas e operárias em Metapolybia docilis, e suas interações. Foram realizadas observações individuais do comportamento das rainhas e operárias previamente marcadas de quatro colônias de M. docilis. Foi feito um catálogo dos atos comportamentais observados com maior frequência. Para as rainhas os comportamentos incluíam tanto displays como comportamentos relacionados às necessidades básicas como alimentação e higiene, nas operárias os comportamentos incluíam principalmente trabalhos de manutenção do ninho e policiamento. Para realizar as análises morfométricas todos os indivíduos das colônias C1, C2 e C3 foram coletados, foi determinada a idade dos indivíduos da colônia e oito medidas corporais externas foram tomadas de uma amostra de 50 operárias e de todas as rainhas das colônias. A colônia C1 estava em Fase Matura, a colônia C2 em Fase de Pré- Enxameagem, as colônias C3 e C4 em Fase de Estabelecimento. Os comportamentos realizados com maior frequência pelas rainhas das quatro colônias foram: curvar o abdômen (CA), dança de display (DD), inspeção de célula (IC), trofalaxia (Tx) e auto-limpeza (Limp). Os comportamentos realizados com maior frequência pelas operárias foram IC e Tx. O comportamento CA provavelmente é um comportamento display de dominância feito pelas rainhas e o comportamento DD provavelmente está ligado a interações competitivas ou de dominância entre as fêmeas das colônias. Não foi encontrada diferenciação morfológica significativa entre rainhas e operárias de M. docilis para as colônias C2 e C3, mas sim para a colônia C1. Dentro das colônias estudadas o controle na reprodução das fêmeas é feito mediante o comportamento e não por manipulação larval. As operárias e as rainhas testam a capacidade reprodutiva das outras rainhas mediante displays de dominância não agressivos para decidir que fêmeas continuaram encarregando-se de produzir novos indivíduos. As operárias possivelmente controlam a reprodução (mediante o policiamento de ovos), seleção das rainhas, e todos os outros aspectos dentro da colônia explorando o ambiente e as necessidades do ninho. / Epiponini wasps societies are characterized by the alternation in the number of queens from many (polygyny) to few queens (olygyny) or even one (monogyny) during the colony cycle. When the colony is in the growing phase there are many queens, but as colony grows queen number decreases and new queens will be produced only when queen number is close to one (monygyny). Epiponines wasps are also characterized by the complexity of the morphological caste syndromes. However, in some Epiponini species the only way to separate reproductives from not reproductives is by behavioral acts or by the degree of ovarian development. The study of behavior and social interactions, associated with morphometric studies, could help to better understand the evolution and complexity found within the Epiponini. We studied and described behavioral acts and interactions between queens and workers in Metapolybia docilis. We performed direct and indirect (video) observations of individual behavior of previously marked queens and workers from four M. docilis colonies. We catalogued the most frequently observed behavioral acts: for queens these behaviors included displays and basic need behaviors such as feeding and hygiene; for workers they included nest maintenance and policing behaviors. All the individuals from colonies C1, C2 and C3 were collected to perform a morphometric analysis and age determination by taking eight external body measurements from a 50 workers sample and from all the queens of the colonies. Colony C1 was in an Emergence phase, colony C2 in a pre-swarming phase, colonies C3 and C4 in a pre-emergence phase. Most frequently behaviors made by queens were bending abdomen (BA), dance display (DD), cell inspection (CI), trofalaxis (Tx) and grooming (G). Most frequently behaviors made by workers were IC and Tx. Bending abdomen (BA) is probably a dominance display made by queens, and dance display (DD) was probably a test behavior made by workers and queens to test another queens. For colonies C2 and C3 there is no morphological differences between queens and workers, but there is a slight difference for colony C1. Within the colonies, the reproduction control is performed by behavior and not by larval manipulation because we did not found morphological differences between castes. Workers and queens tested the reproductive capacity of the queens by non aggressive dominance displays in order to select which females perform the reproduction work in the colony. Workers probably control the reproduction (by worker policing on the eggs laid), queen selection and all the others tasks on the colony by scanning the environment and the needs of the colony.

Metapolybia wasps live in small societies (around one hundred adults) and rear their young in nests they construct on flat surfaces from plant materials. For processing nest paper, they must gather plant materials and process it into pulp with water. The water is collected by water foragers and is transferred to pulp foragers indirectly via a "common stomach." The common stomach, or social crop, is formed by generalist wasps called laborers. These wasps can engage in water exchange, store water in their crops, and may become specialist foragers or builders. We provide an alternative model for regulating task partitioning in construction behavior by using an agent based modeling framework parameterized by our field observations. Our model predicts that assessing colony needs via individual interactions with the common stomach leads to a robust regulation of task partitioning in construction behavior. By using perturbation experiments in our simulations, we show that this emergent task allocation is able to dynamically adapt to perturbations of the environment and to changes in colony-level demands or population structure. The robustness of our model stems from the fact that the common stomach is both a strong buffer and a source of several feedback mechanisms that affect the individual wasps. We show that both the efficiency and the task fidelity of these colonies are dependent upon colony size. We also demonstrate that the emergence of specialist wasps (individuals with high task fidelity) does not require any special initial conditions or reinforcement at the individual level, but it is rather a consequence of colony-level workflow stability. Our model closely mimics the behavior of Metapolybia wasps, demonstrating that a regulation mechanism based on simple pair-wise interactions through a common stomach is a plausible hypothesis for the organization of collective behavior.

Metapolybia wasps construct their nests on flat surfaces using plant materials, which they process into paper. For processing the pulp wasps need water, which is collected by water foragers, and it is transferred to pulp foragers indirectly via a "common stomach." The common stomach is formed by generalist wasps that can engage in water exchange and can store water in their crops. Our goal is to provide an alternative model for regulating task partitioning in construction behavior, focusing on worker connectivity instead of using threshold curves to model mechanisms of colony-level regulation. We propose that the existence of an information center and of a network of worker interactions, which establish sets of positive and negative feedbacks, allow collective regulation of colony-wide behaviors. Using a Stock and Flow modeling framework, we illustrate that the common stomach could serve both as a temporal storage for water and also as a source of information about the colony's current demands related to nest construction tasks. Our model predicts that assessing colony needs via individual interactions with the common stomach leads to a robust regulation of task partitioning in construction behavior. Using perturbation experiments in our simulations, we show that this emergent task allocation is able to dynamically adapt to perturbations of the environment and to changes in colony-level demands or population structure. Our model closely mimics and predicts the behavior of Metapolybia wasps, demonstrating that the regulation mechanism based on worker connectivity through a common stomach is a plausible hypothesis for the organization of collective behavior.

No description available.

For most of the animals, if not all, finding their way to a particular place is crucial for survival. To address this challenge of way-finding, different animals have evolved with different homing strategies. Social hymenopterans like honey bees, ants and wasps are of special interest – foragers of these insects show excellent homing capabilities while having simple neural resources. In this study field, honey bees and ants (desert ants, in particular) are among the most studied animals. Compared to these insects, our understanding on the homing mechanisms of social wasp is rather poor. For my thesis, I have studied homing behaviour of the tropical social wasp Ropalidia marginata, a predator in their foraging habit. To begin with, first I had to know their typical foraging range, which I found to be within about 500 m from their nest. Forager wasps possess a surprisingly well-developed familiarity with their foraging landscape, apparently more intricate than honey bees and desert ants. They acquire this spatial familiarity through flying around the landscape before starting foraging for food. Compared to honey bees and desert ants, this learning period in wasps appears to be much longer – this can be attributed to the much higher density of the tropical landscape in which they have evolved. I have also found that, if needed, they can fly to a distance of about 1.5 km for foraging and can return to their nest even if passively displaced to familiar and unfamiliar places. To return from unfamiliar places, they probably use some sort of searching mechanisms – a skill that they improve with their age. Such searching behaviour is prevalent throughout other hymenopteran insects. I conclude that capability and mechanisms of spatial orientation, navigation and homing in animals are much influenced by their evolutionary origin and the environment in which they have evolved.

Reproduction is the avenue for gaining direct fitness. But in certain species some individuals do not reproduce, instead gain indirect fitness by helping relatives to reproduce; the prime examples for this come from the worker caste of social insects like ants, bees and wasps. For explaining such a perplexing paradox, also known as altruism, W.D. Hamilton proposed that individuals can gain fitness in two ways: directly, by reproducing (direct fitness), and indirectly, by helping relatives to reproduce (indirect fitness). Indirect fitness has since been the main focus for explaining the evolution of workers while usually overlooking the fact that workers can also gain direct fitness. One of the avenues for gaining direct fitness by workers is nest foundation and we have studied this phenomenon in a primitively eusocial wasp Ropalidia marginata. We found that workers routinely leave their natal nests to initiate new nests either alone or with a few other wasps. Before leaving their natal nests, such workers prepare in several ways for nest foundation, like enhancing their nutrient reserves and forming outside nest aggregations to engage in dominance interactions. Next, we investigated the emergence of cooperation and division of labour in newly founded nests and how these affect the productivities of the new nests. We found that while two wasps are sufficient for the emergence of cooperation and reproductive division of labour (DOL), it takes three wasps for non-reproductive DOL to emerge; cooperation and reproductive DOL are not sufficient for increasing colony productivity which comes about only with the addition of non-reproductive DOL. Finally, we found that it is ageing and nutrition, and not work done towards gaining indirect fitness that affect workers’ potential of gaining future direct fitness by independent reproduction via nest foundation, in other words, current indirect fitness is not incompatible with future direct fitness.