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Reproductive Suppression

Submitted by semans on Mon, 11/04/2019 - 11:14

There are several reproduction repression mechanisms in eusocial and social species. Honey bees are a eusocial species that have a reproductive division of labour with only one reproducing queen. Worker bee reproduction is limited by the level of royal jelly provisioning. If the larvae doesn’t receive enough royal jelly then then it will not develop ovaries and will not be able to lay eggs, only potential founder queens are given enough royal jelly to produce ovaries and hence eggs. Naked mole rats are the only eusocial mammals and also have a queen that mediates reproduction repression in her subordinates. Should any of the subordinate females reach reproductive maturity and show signs of reproductive intent, the queen will bully the females by biting and scratching them. This causes stress hormones to be produced in the bullied female which will in turn repress the production of stress hormones and limit reproduction. Though not truly eusocial, meerkats are group living animals that suppress reproduction in a similar fashion to naked mole rats. During the breeding season, if dominant females fear reproductive competition from subordinate females they will temporarily evict those females from the group. Evicted females will produce more stress hormones than females that remain in the group which will, in turn, suppress production of their reproductive hormones. This is additionally evidenced by the fact that evicted females have higher rates of abortion and lower rates of conception than females who remain in the group.

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