DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Does resource limitation promote cooperation? Nutrition restriction and social cohesion in insect societies

论文研究：资源限制是否促进合作？

• 批准号: 1701887
• 负责人: Amy Toth
• 金额: $ 1.94万
• 依托单位: Iowa State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-06-01 至 2019-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1701887&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: DISSERTATION; RESEARCH; Does; resource; limitation

Why cooperation evolves and how it persists in groups of organisms is a question that biologists are still working to answer. This research will investigate if limited nutrition has led to and continues to promote increased cooperation in one of nature's greatest cooperators: the social insects. The project will integrate behavioral, genetic, and physiological research to investigate how nutrition limitation affects cooperation in two species - one with simple societies (paper wasps) and one with complex societies (honey bees). In experimental colonies of both these organisms, the diets of developing workers will be altered such that some individuals will experience nutritional stress and others will receive normal healthy diets. When these workers reach adulthood, the researchers will examine how cooperatively they behave (more or less aggression toward other workers, tending the queen, raising their sisters), testing the hypothesis that decreased nutritional resources promote increased cooperation. By comparing simple and complex social insect societies, this research will examine whether resource limitation could be a general theme in the evolution of cooperation. By analyzing ovary size, fattiness, and the activity of reproduction and nutrition related genes in starved and un-starved individuals, this research will also examine how nutrition can influence differences in behavior through physiology and gene expression. Research will be paired with insect and evolution education outreach via public talks and freely available and entertaining internet content, as well as direct participation in research activities by undergraduates and research assistants of diverse backgrounds.An essential form of cooperation in a social insect colony is between the queen (the sole reproductive in the colony) and her workers (the queen's daughters). Worker honey bees vary in their responsiveness to the queen a behavior that is essential to colony social cohesion. Nutritionally stressed workers exhibit a high sensitivity to the queen, and workers with high nutrition diets exhibit a low sensitivity. The researchers will investigate if mechanisms underlying the link between nutrition and cooperation are evolutionarily conserved by studying elements of nutritional and reproductive physiology and associated molecular pathways in two eusocial insects, honey bees and paper wasps. They will expand this prior work on honey bees to address whether nutritional stress-induced increases in queen responsiveness are underlain by changes in the regulation of conserved genes related to reproduction and nutrient signaling. Second, the researchers will utilize the primitively social paper wasp Polistes metricus to begin to address the generality and evolutionary conservation of this pattern. Polistes workers will be nutritionally restricted and behavioral observations will be recorded to test whether this leads to higher social cohesion of workers on the nest. The researchers will also measure how these changes affect ovary development and changes in the expression of genes associated with reproduction and nutrient signaling. If nutritionally restricted Polistes workers exhibit higher cooperative behavior, then the connection between nutritional stress and cooperation may represent a conserved mechanism regulating social cohesion in insect societies. Cooperation may be strategic when nutrition is scarce, and the link between nutritional stress and cooperation may be a common theme in social evolution.

为什么合作会进化，以及合作是如何在生物群体中持续存在的，这是生物学家仍在努力回答的问题。这项研究将调查是否有限的营养导致并继续促进自然界最伟大的合作者之一：社会昆虫的合作。该项目将整合行为，遗传和生理研究，以调查营养限制如何影响两个物种的合作-一个是简单的社会（纸黄蜂），另一个是复杂的社会（蜜蜂）。 在这两种生物的实验群体中，发育中的工人的饮食将被改变，使得一些个体将经历营养压力，而另一些个体将接受正常的健康饮食。 当这些工蚁成年后，研究人员将检查它们的合作行为（对其他工蚁或多或少的攻击性、照顾蚁后、抚养姐妹篇），测试营养资源减少促进合作增加的假设。通过比较简单和复杂的社会昆虫社会，本研究将探讨是否资源限制可能是一个普遍的主题，在合作的演变。通过分析饥饿和非饥饿个体的卵巢大小，脂肪含量以及生殖和营养相关基因的活性，这项研究还将研究营养如何通过生理和基因表达影响行为差异。研究将通过公开讲座和免费提供的娱乐性互联网内容，以及不同背景的本科生和研究助理直接参与研究活动，与昆虫和进化教育外展相结合。在社会性昆虫群体中，一种重要的合作形式是女王（殖民地中唯一的生殖者）和她的工蜂（女王的女儿）之间的合作。 工蜂对蜂后的反应各不相同，这是一种对群体社会凝聚力至关重要的行为。营养紧张的工人表现出对女王的高敏感性，高营养饮食的工人表现出低敏感性。研究人员将通过研究两种真社会性昆虫蜜蜂和纸蜂的营养和生殖生理学元素以及相关分子途径，调查营养与合作之间联系的潜在机制是否在进化上保守。他们将扩大这项先前在蜜蜂上的工作，以解决营养应激诱导的蜂王反应性增加是否是由与生殖和营养信号相关的保守基因调节的变化所引起的。其次，研究人员将利用具有社会性的纸黄蜂Polistes metricus来开始解决这种模式的普遍性和进化保守性。 Polistes工作人员将在营养上受到限制，并将记录行为观察，以测试这是否会导致巢上工作人员的社会凝聚力更高。 研究人员还将测量这些变化如何影响卵巢发育以及与生殖和营养信号相关的基因表达的变化。如果营养限制的Polistes工人表现出更高的合作行为，那么营养压力和合作之间的联系可能代表了一个保守的机制，调节昆虫社会的社会凝聚力。 当营养缺乏时，合作可能是战略性的，营养压力与合作之间的联系可能是社会进化中的一个共同主题。

项目成果

Resource limitation, intra‐group aggression and brain neuropeptide expression in a social wasp

社会黄蜂的资源限制、群体内攻击性和脑神经肽表达

• DOI: 10.1111/1365-2435.13895
• 发表时间: 2021
• 期刊: Functional Ecology
• 影响因子: 5.2
• 作者: Walton, Alexander;Toth, Amy L.
• 通讯作者: Toth, Amy L.

Hungry for the queen: Honeybee nutritional environment affects worker pheromone response in a life stage‐dependent manner

饥饿的蜂王：蜜蜂的营养环境以生命阶段依赖的方式影响工蜂信息素反应

• DOI: 10.1111/1365-2435.13222
• 发表时间: 2018
• 期刊: Functional Ecology
• 影响因子: 5.2
• 作者: Walton, Alexander;Dolezal, Adam G.;Bakken, Marit A.;Toth, Amy L.;MacMillan, Heath
• 通讯作者: MacMillan, Heath