Meeting Abstract

P2.142  Saturday, Jan. 5  Developmental Investigation of Juvenile Hormone and Royal Jelly in Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches (Gromphadorhina portentosa) CALE, K.M*; DAVIS, J.E; Radford University kmcale@radford.edu

Growth, maturation, and stress are closely related systems in the physiology of insects as in vertebrates. Changes in these systems are regulated in part by juvenile hormone (JH); high levels of JH pre-maturation generally prevent a nymph from maturing into an adult state. While JH has been found to be primarily responsible for adult maturation in many species of insects, the complete mechanistic relationship between the hormone and development remains unclear. Previous findings from research done in our laboratory motivated us to examine the impact of agonistic juvenile hormone modulation; using Madagascar hissing cockroaches (Gromphadorhina portentosa) as a model. Taking the modulation one step further, we added the newly studied hormone royalactin, a protein present in honeybee royal jelly, to the food source of some treatment groups. Recent studies on drosophila have suggested that royalactin, which was thought only to be responsible for queen bee morphogenesis, may also have a significant impact on maturation in other insects. Using this new discovery, we investigated the impact of royal jelly supplementation on MHC development in parallel to our studies on JH. Exploration of hormonal interactions on development includes analyzing correlations of individual’s developmental track, adult weight, and sex.