RUI: Nourishment, Trophallaxis and Caste in Primitively Social Wasps

进化主要是由遗传因素还是环境因素决定的？近年来，外界因素对进化事件和途径的影响日益受到重视。另一个主要的兴趣领域是帮助行为的起源和维持，而不是自私行为。达尔文对自然选择的严格解释是，除了父母之外，帮助行为应该很少见。后代和配偶的相互作用，然而社会行为在哺乳动物中很普遍，在人类中尤为突出，在一些鸟类和昆虫中也有。群居昆虫代表了一个有价值的模型系统，用来测试和评估当代生物学中这些问题的核心假设。社会性昆虫可以通过实验操纵，轻松而经济地解决社会性鸟类、哺乳动物或人类无法解决的问题。拟议的研究利用原始社会黄蜂（“纸黄蜂”），根据严格的实验协议在实验室饲养，试图解决他们的工人（帮助）行为的发展基础。同时，这项工作将解决环境因素（特别是营养）与假设的内在遗传因素在工人行为进化中的相对贡献。近年来该领域的研究大多强调遗传因素，而本研究将强调外在因素。因此，这项研究的结果将直接关系到当今生物学的两个核心领域。除了解决生物学的基本假设外，所获得的关于黄蜂营养和发育的具体知识可能适用于管理饲养纸蜂，纸蜂具有很高的潜力，作为生物防治剂，毛虫（如棉铃虫、番茄budworm、白菜环虫等）是植物害虫。而对毛虫进行化学控制要么是不可行的，要么是不可取的。

Is evolution dictated primarily by genetic factors or primarily by environmental factors? Increasing emphasis in recent years has been placed on extrinsic factors as significantly affecting evolutionary events and pathways. Another major interest area is the origin and maintenance of helping behavior as opposed to selfish behavior. A strict Darwinian interpretation of natural selection would be that helping behavior should be rare outside of parent.offspring and mate interactions, yet social behavior is widespread in mammals and is particularly prominent in humans, and it also occurs in some birds and insects. Social insects represent a valuable model system with which to test and evaluate certain hypotheses that are central to these issues in contemporary biology. Social insects can be manipulated experimentally to address questions with an ease and economy unapproached in social birds, mammals, or humans. The proposed research utilizes primitively social wasps ("paper wasps"), reared in the laboratory according to strict experimental protocols, to attempt to resolve the developmental basis of worker (helping) behavior in them. The work will at the same time address the relative contribution of environmental factors (nourishment, in particular) versus hypothesized intrinsic, genetic factors in the evolution of worker behavior. Most recent research in the field has emphasized genetic factors, whereas the present study will emphasize extrinsic factors. Results of the research will thus bear directly on two areas of central interest in biology today. In addition to addressing basic hypotheses in biology, the specific knowledge gained about wasp nourishment and development may be applicable to the managed rearing of paper wasps, which have high potential as biological control agents where caterpillars (e.g., Cotton bollworm, Tomato budworm, Cabbage looper, etc.) are plant pests, and chemical control of the caterpillars is either unfeasible or undesirable.