Trade-offs between sperm viability and immune protein expression in honey bee queens (Apis mellifera)
oleh: Alison McAfee, Abigail Chapman, Jeffery S. Pettis, Leonard J. Foster, David R. Tarpy
| Format: | Article |
|---|---|
| Diterbitkan: | Nature Portfolio 2021-01-01 |
Deskripsi
Honey bee queens store and use sperm for years after mating, but doing so may require a dampened immune response to keep the sperm viable. Alison McAfee et al. tested this hypothesis using mass spectrometry-based proteomics in queens with high and low sperm quantity and quality and found that lower measures of fertility correlated with high levels of the immune effector lysozyme, consistent with a trade-off between immunity and fertility.