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Nourishment level affects caste-related gene expression in Polistes wasps.

ABSTRACT: Social insects exhibit striking phenotypic plasticity in the form of distinct reproductive (queen) and non-reproductive (worker) castes, which are typically driven by differences in the environment during early development. Nutritional environment and nourishment during development has been shown to be broadly associated with caste determination across social insect taxa such as bees, wasps, and termites. In primitively social insects such as Polistes paper wasps, caste remains flexible throughout adulthood, but there is evidence that nourishment inequalities can bias caste development with workers receiving limited nourishment compared to queens. Dominance and vibrational signaling are behaviors that have also been linked to caste differences in paper wasps, suggesting that a combination of nourishment and social factors may drive caste determination. To better understand the molecular basis of nutritional effects on caste determination, we used RNA-sequencing to investigate the gene expression changes in response to proteinaceous nourishment deprivation in Polistes metricus larvae.We identified 285 nourishment-responsive transcripts, many of which are related to lipid metabolism and oxidation-reduction activity. Via comparisons to previously identified caste-related genes, we found that nourishment restriction only partially biased wasp gene expression patterns toward worker caste-like traits, which supports the notion that nourishment, in conjunction with social environment, is a determinant of developmental caste bias. In addition, we conducted cross-species comparisons of nourishment-responsive genes, and uncovered largely lineage-specific gene expression changes, suggesting few shared nourishment-responsive genes across taxa.Overall, the results from this study highlight the complex and multifactorial nature of environmental effects on the gene expression patterns underlying plastic phenotypes.

SUBMITTER: Berens AJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4381360 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Nourishment level affects caste-related gene expression in Polistes wasps.

Berens Ali J AJ Hunt James H JH Toth Amy L AL

BMC genomics 20150325

<h4>Background</h4>Social insects exhibit striking phenotypic plasticity in the form of distinct reproductive (queen) and non-reproductive (worker) castes, which are typically driven by differences in the environment during early development. Nutritional environment and nourishment during development has been shown to be broadly associated with caste determination across social insect taxa such as bees, wasps, and termites. In primitively social insects such as Polistes paper wasps, caste remain ...[more]

PMID: 25880983

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Project description:Understanding intraspecific geographic variation in animal signals poses a challenging evolutionary problem. Studies addressing geographic variation typically focus on signals used in mate-choice, however, geographic variation in intrasexual signals involved in competition is also known to occur. In Polistes dominulus paper wasps, females have black facial spots that signal dominance: individuals wasps with more complex 'broken' facial patterns are better fighters and are avoided by rivals. Recent work suggests there is dramatic geographic variation in these visual signals of quality, though this variation has not been explicitly described or quantified. Here, we analyze variation in P. dominulus signals across six populations and explore how environmental conditions may account for this variation. Overall, we found substantial variation in facial pattern brokenness across populations and castes. Workers have less broken facial patterns than gynes and queens, which have similar facial patterns. Strepsipteran parasitism, body size and temperature are all correlated with the facial pattern variation, suggesting that developmental plasticity likely plays a key role in this variation. First, the extent of parasitism varies across populations and parasitized individuals have lower facial pattern brokenness than unparasitized individuals. Second, there is substantial variation in body size across populations and a weak but significant relationship between facial pattern brokenness and body size. Wasps from populations with smaller body size (e.g. Italy) tend to have less broken facial patterns than wasps from populations with larger body size (e.g. New York, USA). Third, there is an apparent association between facial patterns and climate, with wasp from cooler locations tending to have higher facial pattern brokenness than wasps from warmer locations. Additional experimental work testing the causes and consequences of facial pattern variation will be important, as geographic variation in signals has important consequences for the evolution of communication systems and social behavior.

Dataset Information

Nourishment level affects caste-related gene expression in Polistes wasps.

Publications

Nourishment level affects caste-related gene expression in Polistes wasps.

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