Social Aggression, Experience, and Brain Gene Expression in a Subsocial Bee

Withee, Jacob R.; Rehan, Sandra M.

doi:10.1093/icb/icx005

Cited by 25 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…2000 ; Cristino et al. 2006 ; Withee and Rehan 2017 ). Taken together, these results indicate C. australensis behavior is related to shared genes, pathways, and regulatory elements deeply conserved in association with social behavior across both invertebrate and vertebrate behavioral comparisons ( supplementary tables S7 and S16 , Supplementary Material online).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conserved Genes Underlie Phenotypic Plasticity in an Incipiently Social Bee

Rehan

Glastad

Steffen

et al. 2018

Genome Biology and Evolution

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Despite a strong history of theoretical work on the mechanisms of social evolution, relatively little is known of the molecular genetic changes that accompany transitions from solitary to eusocial forms. Here, we provide the first genome of an incipiently social bee that shows both solitary and social colony organization in sympatry, the Australian carpenter bee Ceratina australensis. Through comparative analysis, we provide support for the role of conserved genes and cis-regulation of gene expression in the phenotypic plasticity observed in nest-sharing, a rudimentary form of sociality. Additionally, we find that these conserved genes are associated with caste differences in advanced eusocial species, suggesting these types of mechanisms could pave the molecular pathway from solitary to eusocial living. Genes associated with social nesting in this species show signatures of being deeply conserved, in contrast to previous studies in other bees showing novel and faster-evolving genes are associated with derived sociality. Our data provide support for the idea that the earliest social transitions are driven by changes in gene regulation of deeply conserved genes.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conserved Genes Underlie Phenotypic Plasticity in an Incipiently Social Bee

Rehan

Glastad

Steffen

et al. 2018

Genome Biology and Evolution

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“…Other studies on North American Polistes wasps have characterized patterns of gene expression associated with reproductive dominance (Toth et al 2014 ) and social recognition (Berens et al 2016 ), but to date we are lacking information relating to the genetic basis of aggressive and cooperative behaviour in these wasps. In other social insects, there have been large transcriptomic studies that looked at global gene expression patterns associated with aggressive interactions during colony founding in fire ants (Manfredini et al 2013 ), with dominance in the small carpenter bee (Withee and Rehan 2017 ), and with aggressive behaviour in honey bees in the context of colony defence (Alaux et al 2009 ). Finally, studies on bumblebees have investigated the role of juvenile hormone (JH) and the gene vitellogenin in regulating intra-colony aggressive interactions among workers (Amsalem et al 2014 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Candidate genes for cooperation and aggression in the social wasp Polistes dominula

2018

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Cooperation and aggression are ubiquitous in social groups, and the genetic mechanisms underlying these behaviours are of great interest for understanding how social group formation is regulated and how it evolves. In this study, we used a candidate gene approach to investigate the patterns of expression of key genes for cooperation and aggression in the brain of a primitively eusocial wasp, Polistes dominula, during colony founding, when multiple foundresses can join the same nest and establish subtle hierarchies of dominance. We used a comparative approach to select candidate genes for cooperation and aggression looking at two previously published studies on global gene expression in wasps and ants. We tested the expression of these genes in P. dominula wasps that were either displaying aggressive behaviour (dominant and single foundresses) or cooperation (subordinate foundresses and workers) towards nestmates. One gene in particular, the egg yolk protein vitellogenin, known for its reproductive role in insects, displayed patterns of expression that strongly matched wasp social rank. We characterize the genomic context of vitellogenin by building a head co-expression gene network for P. dominula, and we discuss a potential role for vitellogenin as a mediator of social interactions in wasps.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s00359-018-1252-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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“…Both Withee and Rehan (2017) and Weitekamp et al (2017) then describe the genomic and neural causes of variation in cooperation in insects and fish, respectively. Withee and Rehan (2017) describe how winning or losing dominance contests or a changing social rank can alter brain gene expression in the subsocial bee Ceratina calcarata.…”

Section: Overview Of Symposium Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction to Symposium: The Developmental and Proximate Mechanisms Causing Individual Variation in Cooperative Behavior

Dantzer

Rubenstein

2017

Integrative and Comparative Biology

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Nearly all animals interact with members of their own species at some point during their lives. These behavioral interactions range from courtship, mating, and parental care to the complex cooperative behavior among related or unrelated individuals in group-living species. A number of theoretical models have attempted to explain how cooperation can evolve through natural selection. Although tremendously influential in animal behavior research, these traditional models have largely ignored individual variation in cooperative behavior and its underlying developmental and proximate mechanisms. However, a set of emerging models suggest that the evolution of cooperation can be heavily influenced by the degree of individual variation in cooperative behavior, as well as the complexity of the underlying mechanisms. Yet, while theoreticians argue the importance of studying individual variation in cooperation and the mechanisms underlying it, empiricists have not focused upon these aspects. The main objectives of our symposium at the 2017 meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology is to establish new research avenues to study variation in cooperative behavior using both proximate and ultimate explanations and to produce a road map to study the developmental and proximate mechanisms in generating individual variation in cooperative behavior. This symposium brought together empiricists and theoreticians investigating cooperative behavior in diverse taxa and across multiple levels of analysis. Here we briefly describe the rationale for this symposium and why we thought it was needed as well as provide a brief overview of the contributions.

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Social Aggression, Experience, and Brain Gene Expression in a Subsocial Bee

Cited by 25 publications

References 54 publications

Conserved Genes Underlie Phenotypic Plasticity in an Incipiently Social Bee

Conserved Genes Underlie Phenotypic Plasticity in an Incipiently Social Bee

Candidate genes for cooperation and aggression in the social wasp Polistes dominula

Introduction to Symposium: The Developmental and Proximate Mechanisms Causing Individual Variation in Cooperative Behavior

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