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.

为什么合作能够发展及其在生物体中如何持续存在，这是生物学家仍在努力回答的问题。这项研究将研究有限的营养是否导致并继续促进自然最大合作者之一的合作：社会昆虫。该项目将整合行为，遗传和生理研究，以研究营养限制如何影响两个物种的合作 - 一个具有简单社会（纸黄蜂），一个具有复杂的社会（蜜蜂）。 在这两种生物的实验菌落中，发展工人的饮食将被改变，以使某些人会经历营养压力，而另一些人则会接受正常的健康饮食。 当这些工人成年时，研究人员将研究他们的行为（或多或少对其他工人的侵略，抚养女王，抚养姐妹），并检验了降低营养资源的假设，促进了合作的增加。通过比较简单而复杂的社会昆虫社会，这项研究将研究资源限制是否可能是合作发展的一般主题。通过分析饥饿和未饥饿的个体中卵巢大小，肥胖以及繁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来影响行为差异。研究将与昆虫和进化教育教育宣传通过公众谈判和娱乐性互联网内容，以及不同背景的本科生和研究助理的直接参与研究活动。社会昆虫群体中合作的基本形式是女王（殖民地唯一的生殖型）和女王的女王（女王）。 工人蜜蜂对女王的反应有所不同，一种对殖民地社会凝聚力至关重要的行为。营养压力的工人对女王表现出很高的敏感性，而营养饮食高的工人表现出低敏感性。研究人员将通过研究营养和生殖生理学的元素以及两种共性昆虫，蜜蜂和纸黄蜂的营养和生殖生理学元素以及相关的分子途径，研究营养与合作之间的机制是否在进化上是保存的。他们将在蜜蜂上扩展这项先前的工作，以解决营养应激诱导的女王反应性增加是否取决于与繁殖和养分信号相关的保守基因的调节的变化。其次，研究人员将利用原始的社会纸黄蜂polistes Metristes开始解决这种模式的一般性和进化保护。 Polistes工人将受到营养限制，并将记录行为观察，以测试这是否导致工人在巢穴上的社会凝聚力更高。 研究人员还将衡量这些变化如何影响卵巢发育以及与繁殖和养分信号相关的基因表达变化。如果营养限制的政治工人表现出更高的合作行为，那么营养压力与合作之间的联系可能代表了调节昆虫社会社会凝聚力的保守机制。 当营养稀缺时，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