Meeting Abstract

55.2  Sunday, Jan. 5 13:45  Larval lipid accumulation strategies when adults fail to synthesize lipids: Carry over between life stages in holometabolous insects VISSER, B.*; CASAS, J.; GIRON, D.; Institut de Recherche sur la Biologie de l’Insecte, Université de Tours, IRBI UMR CNRS 7261, Avenue Monge, 37200 Tours, France; Institut de Recherche sur la Biologie de l’Insecte, Université de Tours, IRBI UMR CNRS 7261, Avenue Monge, 37200 Tours, France; Institut de Recherche sur la Biologie de l’Insecte, Université de Tours, IRBI UMR CNRS 7261, Avenue Monge, 37200 Tours, France bertannevisser@gmail.com

Accumulating energetic reserves in anticipation of poor environmental conditions is essential for survival and reproduction. Remarkably, the majority of parasitoid species lack the ability to store energy in the form of lipids in the adult life stage. The loss of lipogenesis evolved concurrently with the parasitoid lifestyle, but it remains unclear how and at which life stage selection acted on parasitoids to fuel the loss of lipogenesis. We hypothesized that the parasitic larval lifestyle has facilitated these insects with the means to carry over reserves from their hosts, rendering their own lipid synthesis redundant or too costly to maintain. If losing lipogenesis is indeed neutral or beneficial to larvae, similar lipogenic strategies can be expected between larvae and adults. Using two parasitoid species that differ in lipogenic strategy as adults (i.e. one species that synthesizes lipids and one species that lacks lipogenesis), the aim of this study was to determine if lipogenic strategies are similar between life stages.