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Aphids (Hemiptera: Aphididae) extract nutrients from host plant phloem via stylets that facilitate salivation and sap uptake. When navigating to the phloem, aphids periodically puncture nonvascular cells and sample cell contents, but rarely cause significant cell damage. As a result, aphids are considered "stealthy" feeders. In contrast, insects that do cause damage, such as chewing herbivores, will take up host cell contents-including DNA-into their guts. Researchers can use molecular barcoding methods to identify recent host use patterns of chewing herbivores. This information is valuable for both pest management and basic ecological studies. Because of their stealthy feeding style, it was assumed that host plant DNA could not be recovered from aphids and other Sternorrhyncha. However, several recent studies document host plant DNA uptake by psyllids, which feed in a similar manner to aphids. Therefore, we hypothesized that aphids may also acquire DNA from host plants. Since aphids puncture and sample cytosol contents from cells, we predicted that aphids would be most likely to acquire DNA from chloroplasts. To test this, we performed host feeding and host transfer experiments with Myzus persicae (Sulzer), then used PCR to recover and sequence a region between the trnT and trnF genes from acquired chloroplast DNA. We found that M. persicae readily acquires chloroplast DNA, even prior to phloem contact, and that fragment sizes sufficient for host plant identification can be recovered. Our work suggests that molecular gut content analysis is a viable tool for studying aphid-host interactions.

Social wasps of the genus Vespula have spread to nearly all landmasses worldwide and have become significant pests in their introduced ranges, affecting economies and biodiversity. Comprehensive genome assemblies and annotations for these species are required to develop the next generation of control strategies and monitor existing chemical control. We sequenced and annotated the genomes of the common wasp (Vespula vulgaris), German wasp (Vespula germanica), and the western yellowjacket (Vespula pensylvanica). Our chromosome-level Vespula assemblies each contain 176-179 Mb of total sequence assembled into 25 scaffolds, with 10-200 unanchored scaffolds, and 16,566-18,948 genes. We annotated gene sets relevant to the applied management of invasive wasp populations, including genes associated with spermatogenesis and development, pesticide resistance, olfactory receptors, immunity and venom. These genomes provide evidence for active DNA methylation in Vespidae and tandem duplications of venom genes. Our genomic resources will contribute to the development of next-generation control strategies, and monitoring potential resistance to chemical control.

" Adult Butterfly Feeding-Nectar Flower Associations: Constraints of Taxonomic Affiliation, Butterfly, and Nectar Flower Morphology." Nectar feeding without pollination is sometimes referred to as nectar thievery (Inouye, [9]), nectar robbing (e.g., Agrawal et al., [1]; Bauder et al., [3]), or ineffective legitimate visitation (Castro et al., [4]). Keywords: butterflies; Lycaenidae; nectar larceny; nectar robbing; Penstemon EN butterflies Lycaenidae nectar larceny nectar robbing Penstemon 1 5 5 02/03/23 20230201 NES 230201 The relationships between Lepidoptera and plants are complicated. [Extracted from the article]

In eusocial insects, nestmate queens can differ in their reproductive output, causing asymmetries in the distribution of mutual benefits. However, little is known about how reproductive success is partitioned in incipiently polygynous species, which would provide clues about the evolutionary forces shaping the emergence of polygyny. Here, we leverage a recent transition from predominantly single-queen (monogyne) to multiple-queen (polygyne) colonies in an invasive yellowjacket species to investigate whether queens in incipiently polygyne colonies invest equally in reproductive effort or vary in their relative investment in each caste. We excavated nine polygyne Vespula pensylvanica colonies in Hawaii and used restriction site–associated DNA sequencing to infer the parentage of worker, male, and gyne (daughter queen) pupae from each nest comb. In four colonies with at least eight gyne pupae, a single queen produced most or all gynes. These queens had no male offspring and few worker offspring, suggesting that a subset of nestmate queens might exploit the collective benefits of newly polygyne societies. In contrast to most queens, gyne producers had offspring distributed nonrandomly across nest combs. Nestmate queens generally exhibited low relatedness levels. Our results suggest that rapid, ecologically driven transitions to polygyny among unrelated queens may, at their onset, be vulnerable to reproductive asymmetries that are likely evolutionarily unstable. More broadly, this study contributes to the understanding of social evolution by uncovering asymmetric partitioning of reproduction in a population with newly evolved polygyny and raises questions about the future trajectories of introduced populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Bees used alfalfa leaves but ignored alfalfa petals and cut marigold petals but not marigold leaves. Relative to the abundance of plants in cages, bees used alfalfa leaves, marigold petals, and mallow leaves 4.8, 8.9, and 6.1 times more than expected, respectively, but used mallow petals 1.9 times less than expected (Fig. Keywords: alfalfa leafcutting bee; behavior; Medicago sativa; Megachile rotundata; Megachilidae; reproduction EN alfalfa leafcutting bee behavior Medicago sativa Megachile rotundata Megachilidae reproduction 1 4 4 02/03/22 20220201 NES 220201 The alfalfa leafcutter bee ( I Megachile rotundata i , hereafter simply "leafcutter bee") is a solitary, cavity-nesting bee native to Eurasia, managed as an agricultural pollinator of alfalfa and several other crops in North America since the 1940s (Pitts-Singer and Cane 2011). Here, we describe the petal provisioning behavior and provide the first, to our knowledge, quantitative assessment of behavior related to leafcutter bee nest building material selection involving petals in a controlled environment. [Extracted from the article]

Hummingbirds, a highly diverse avian family, are specialized vertebrate pollinators that feed upon carbohydraterich nectar to fuel their fast metabolism while consuming invertebrates to obtain protein. Previous work has found that morphologically diverse hummingbird communities exhibit higher diet specialization on floral resources than morphologically similar hummingbird communities. Due to the difficulties of studying avian diets, we have little understanding whether hummingbirds show similar patterns with their invertebrate prey. Here, we use DNA metabarcoding to analyze floral and invertebrate diets of 3 species of sympatric North American hummingbirds. We collected fecal samples from 89 Anna’s (Calypte anna), 39 Black-chinned (Archilochus alexandri), and 29 Calliope (Selasphorus calliope) hummingbirds in urban and rural localities as well as across an elevational gradient from sea level to 2,500 meters above sea level in California, USA. We found hummingbirds showed high dietary overlap in both invertebrate and plant resources, with few invertebrate and plant families common to most individuals and many families found in only a few individuals. Chironomidae was the most common invertebrate family across all species, and Rosaceae and Orobanchaceae were the most common plant families. Anna’s Hummingbirds had significantly higher invertebrate diet diversity than Black-chinned Hummingbirds when found at the same sites, but we found no difference in plant diet diversity among any of the 3 species. Hummingbirds in urban sites had higher plant diet diversity than in rural sites, but we found no effect of elevation on dietary richness. Our study shows how DNA metabarcoding can be used to non-invasively investigate previously unknown life-histories of well-studied birds, lending insight to community structure, function, and evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]