Fig. 5: Z9-C29 and Z9-C31 act as quorum sensing pheromones related to colony population under queenright condition.
a Schematic diagram of the colony experiment. b Average TOS of workers introduced to a small (n = 13) or a large colony (n = 11) for 24 h post eclosion. c Schematic diagram of quantification of CHCs in wax from colonies of different sizes. d Relative amount of Z9-C29 and Z9-C31 in wax of small (10−15 workers: n = 20) and large (60−80 workers: n = 22) queenright colonies. e Schematic diagram of chemical additions to the colony. f Average TOS of workers exposed to pentane extracts of colony wax at three different doses (n = 25, 8, 16 and 14 for pentane, 5g, 10g and 20g, respectively). g Average TOS of worker exposed to a blend of Z9-C29 and Z9-C31 in Experiment 5c (left panel). Gray: three colonies with pentane addition, n = 18 paired workers; Red: three colonies with Z9-C29 and Z9-C31 addition, n = 23 paired workers. Data are shown as mean '±SEM. Bars labelled with different letters indicate statistically significant differences across different groups. In (b), average TOS of worker α were compared by unpaired t-test (two-tailed) while that of worker β groups were analyzed by Mann–Whitney U test (two-tailed). Data in (d) was analyzed using unpaired t-test (two-tailed). Data in (f) was analyzed by two-way ANOVA with Tukey post-hoc test (two-tailed) using log10-transformed data. Data in (g) was determined by linear mixed-effects models with treatment as a fixed effect and colony identity as a random effect. Detailed statistical test results and adjusted P-values for multiple comparison were shown in Supplementary Data 1. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.
