title: Enfleurage, lipid recycling and the origin of perfume collection in orchid bees.
abstract: Enfleurage, the extraction of elusive floral scents with the help of a lipophilic carrier (grease), is widely used in the perfume industry. Male neotropical orchid bees (Euglossini), which accumulate exogenous fragrances as pheromone analogues, use a similar technique. To collect fragrances, the bees apply large amounts of straight-chain lipids to odoriferous surfaces from their cephalic labial glands, which dissolve the volatiles, and the mixture is then transferred to voluminous hind-leg pockets. Here, we show that males do in fact operate a lipid conveyor belt to accumulate and concentrate their perfume. From the hind-leg pockets of caged male Euglossa viridissima, deuterated derivatives of carrier lipids were consecutively sequestered, shuttled back to the labial glands and reused on consecutive bouts of fragrance collection. Such lipid cycling is instrumental in creating complex perfume bouquets. Furthermore, we found that labial glands of male orchid bees are strikingly similar to those of scent-marking male bumblebees in terms of size, form and structure. This, and a prominent overlap in secretory products, led us to propose that perfume collection evolved from scent-marking in ancestral corbiculate bees.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurobiology, University of Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf 40225, Germany. eltz@uni-duessseldorf.de
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Eltz
authors.forename: Yvonne
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zimmermann
authors.forename: Jenny
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Haftmann
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Twele
authors.forename: Wittko
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Francke
authors.forename: J Javier G
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Quezada-Euan
authors.forename: Klaus
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lunau
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001516:Bees / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D001692:Biological Transport; D050356:Lipid Metabolism; D008055:Lipids / Q000737:chemistry*; D008297:Male; D009812:Odorants; D029595:Orchidaceae / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D008055:Lipids