Chemical compounds present on the cuticle of social insects are important in communication, as they are used in recognition of nestmates and sexual partners as well as in caste distinction, varying according to several factors, such as genetic and environmental. In this context, some studies have explored the cuticular chemical profile as a tool for assessing intra- and interspecific differences in social insects, although few studies have investigated this in social wasps. This study aimed to assess the differences in cuticular chemical profiles among different geographic samples of the wasp Mischocyttarus consimilis Zikán. Our hypothesis was that environmental factors are decisive to compose the cuticular chemical profiles of colonies of these social wasps and that there are differences regarding the geographic distribution among colonies. We used Fourier Transform Infrared-Photoacoustic Spectroscopy (FTIR-PAS) to assess the chemical profiles of samples. Our results show that despite there are differences between the cuticular chemical composition of the wasps’ samples from different populations, there is no significant correlation compared to the spatial distribution of the colonies nor with the environment. Thus, our hypothesis was refuted, and we can infer that in this species neither exogenous nor genetic factors stand out to differentiate the chemical signature of their colonies, but a combination of both.

中文翻译：

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社会黄蜂短鼻猴（膜翅目，虎科）的种内表皮化学特征变化。

存在于社交昆虫表皮上的化合物在交流中很重要，因为它们可用于识别同伴和性伴侣以及区分种姓，这些化合物会根据遗传和环境等多种因素而变化。在这种情况下，尽管很少有研究在社会黄蜂中对此进行研究，但一些研究已经探索了表皮化学特征作为评估社会昆虫种内和种间差异的工具。这项研究旨在评估黄蜂拟南芥不同地理样品之间表皮化学特征的差异。Zikán。我们的假设是，环境因素对构成这些社会黄蜂菌落的表皮化学特性起决定性作用，并且菌落之间的地理分布存在差异。我们使用傅立叶变换红外光声光谱（FTIR-PAS）来评估样品的化学特征。我们的结果表明，尽管来自不同种群的黄蜂样品的表皮化学成分之间存在差异，但与菌落的空间分布以及与环境的关系均无显着相关性。因此，我们的假设被驳斥了，我们可以推断出，在该物种中，既没有外源因素也没有遗传因素来区分其菌落的化学特征，而是两者的结合。