DISSERTATION RESEARCH: The Evolutionary Genomics of Facultative Social Behavior in a Tropical Sweat Bee

论文研究：热带汗蜂兼性社会行为的进化基因组学

• 批准号: 0808256
• 负责人: Peter Nonacs
• 金额: $ 1.17万
• 依托单位: University of California-Los Angeles
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-07-01 至 2010-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0808256&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: DISSERTATION; RESEARCH; Evolutionary; Genomics; Facultative

ABSTRACT PI Nonacs CoPI Wayne Proposal #IOS-0808256THE EVOLUTIONARY GENOMICS OF FACULTATIVE SOCIAL BEHAVIOR IN A TROPICAL SWEAT BEEEvolutionary explanations for altruism have been sought since the time of Darwin, and are still not agreed upon by many researchers. Cooperation is most extreme within social insect colonies, in which one or a few members (queens) reproduce, and most colony members (workers) forego reproduction to specialize in other tasks. One explanation for social evolution is based on the similarities between social insect worker behavior and maternal reproductive traits. The worker caste may have originated in a solitary ancestor when a mutant female exhibited maternal behavior prior to dispersal. This would have resulted in sibling-directed, instead of offspring-directed care. If this theory is correct, genes active throughout the reproductive cycle of solitary ancestors should be differentially regulated in workers and queens of social descendants. An ideal test of this hypothesis requires knowledge of gene expression patterns in representatives of the social and ancestral solitary state. Fortunately an analogous condition exists in Megalopta genalis bees, where both social and solitary individuals are found simultaneously within the same population. To analyze differential gene expression, a custom microarray, (a slide containing probes corresponding to approximately 5,000 genes expressed in the M. genalis brain) will be created. Because sociality in M. genalis is flexible and aseasonal, this proposal represents a better controlled and more informative study than is possible in any species studied to date. The results will highlight evolutionary pressures consistently important to the origin of eusociality, and have a transformative role in understanding how the social environment affects reproductive behavior. Broader impacts of the work: The new large-scale genomic resource created within this proposal will be publicly available, and useful to other researchers from many scientific disciplines. The proposed laboratory work will provide training in cutting edge molecular techniques to undergraduate students through an ongoing UCLA program aimed at increasing minority participation in scientific research.

摘要 PI Nonacs CoPI 韦恩提案#IOS-0808256热带汗蜂兼性社会行为的进化基因组学 自达尔文时代以来，人们一直在寻求对利他主义的进化解释，但许多研究人员仍未达成一致。 社会性昆虫群体中的合作最为极端，其中一个或几个成员（蚁后）进行繁殖，而大多数群体成员（工蚁）放弃繁殖而专门从事其他任务。 对社会进化的一种解释是基于社会昆虫工蜂行为和母性生殖特征之间的相似性。 当突变女性在分散之前表现出母性行为时，工人种姓可能起源于一个孤独的祖先。 这将导致以兄弟姐妹为主导，而不是以后代为主导的照顾。 如果这个理论是正确的，那么在独居祖先的整个生殖周期中活跃的基因应该在社会后代的工蚁和蚁后中受到不同的调控。 对这一假设的理想检验需要了解社会和祖先孤独状态代表的基因表达模式。 幸运的是，大翅蜂中也存在类似的情况，即在同一种群中同时发现群居个体和独居个体。 为了分析差异基因表达，将创建定制微阵列（包含对应于 M. genalis 大脑中表达的大约 5,000 个基因的探针）。 由于 M. genalis 的社会性是灵活且不受季节影响的，因此与迄今为止研究的任何物种相比，该提议代表了一项更好控制、信息更丰富的研究。 研究结果将强调进化压力对于真社会性的起源一直很重要，并且在理解社会环境如何影响生殖行为方面具有变革性作用。 这项工作的更广泛影响：本提案中创建的新的大规模基因组资源将公开可用，并对许多科学学科的其他研究人员有用。 拟议的实验室工作将通过加州大学洛杉矶分校正在进行的旨在增加少数族裔参与科学研究的项目，为本科生提供尖端分子技术的培训。