Wasps can survive on alcohol alone without making noise.

Wasps can survive on alcohol alone without making noise.

Written by Rachel Berkowitz

An alcohol-only diet would doom most species, but new research suggests that wasps can survive seemingly asymptomatically on an 80 percent ethanol sugar solution as their sole food source. are.

Fruit flies, shrews, and many other animals naturally consume the alcohol found in fermented fruit. This occurs when yeast and certain bacteria break down the sugars in ripe fruit and produce small amounts of ethanol. Most animal species show signs of impairment or toxicity when ingesting this substance at concentrations above 4%. However, animal nutrition researcher Sofia Bucebuti, now at Ben-Gurion University in the Negev, Israel, suggests that hornets and hornets may be more resistant to alcohol, or that they use alcohol as a food source. I suspected that it was. As it turns out, the guts of these insects are known to host yeast that converts fructose into alcohol. When pollinated and fed by wasps and wasps, some of this yeast attaches to plants and their fruits, where they play an important role in the fermentation process.

Bucebuti turned his attention to the hornet. Vespa orientalis, A type of social bee. This week’s research Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesShe and her colleagues at Tel Aviv University fed both wasps and honeybees a sugar solution containing 0 to 80 percent ethanol with traceable carbon isotopes. The researchers found that wasp breath contained up to 300 percent more labeled carbon than honey bee breath, suggesting that the hornets’ bodies broke down alcohol more quickly.

About supporting science journalism

If you enjoyed this article, please consider supporting our award-winning journalism. Currently subscribing. By subscribing, you help ensure future generations of influential stories about the discoveries and ideas that shape the world today.

“Ethanol contains a lot of energy and is an excellent metabolic fuel,” says study co-author and zoologist Eran Levin. The problem, of course, for humans and many other animals is that this substance interacts with the brain and organs, affecting behavior and health. However, when the ethanol-fed hornets in the study were given nest-building material, they completed the construction task as efficiently as the sugar-fed hornets. When faced with intruders, they sent a “retreat” signal without delay. Additionally, wasps fed 80 percent ethanol lived out their typical three-month lifespan. Their bee counterparts died within 24 hours. Still, the wasps did not show a preference for sugar or ethanol when given the choice. “If ethanol is more nutritious and has no negative side effects, shouldn’t they want it more? They probably won’t be able to taste it,” Bucebuti suggests.

To extract the secrets behind this metabolic ability, study co-author and zoologist Dorothy Fouchon led a search for genetic clues. She discovered that wasps have multiple copies of the gene responsible for the enzyme that breaks down alcohol. This is probably an adaptation facilitated by the association with yeast.

James Fry, a biologist at the University of Rochester who was not involved in the study, said the study tells “an interesting evolutionary story.” But he cautions that this method is too different from that of other studies to allow direct comparisons of ethanol tolerance between species.

Robert Dudley, an expert on insect flight at the University of California, Berkeley, points out that insects would never encounter such high ethanol levels in nature. Vucebuti said the researchers “were trying to find an upper limit, but we still couldn’t find an upper limit.” The next challenge is to study gene expression upon ethanol consumption and explore patterns in animals known to be attracted to alcohol, such as some beetles and bats. Dudley agrees: “There is clearly a need for broader research into social Hymenoptera and other insects.”