Steacie Fellowship RTI -From genes to societies in ants: infrastructure for rapid determination of expression and function of genes controlling development and evolution of complexity in ant societies

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How novel morphological or behavioural features originate and then evolve in biological systems has remained a central, yet unresolved, problem in evolutionary biology. My lab at McGill University attempts to address this problem by studying the genes controlling embryonic development in a diverse array of animals. These genes have been conserved for millions of years and control the development of all animals, including jellyfish, ants, and humans. Ants are a powerful model system to understand how these genes interact with their environment because different castes in an ant colony, such as queens and workers, are dramatically different and are determined by the environment. For example, depending on what a young embryo is fed, it can develop up into a queen and live for 30 years or develop into a worker and live for only a few months. This general approach will reveal how developmental genes respond to their environment, and how this environmental response may contribute to the origin and evolution of novel features in biological systems. The equipment requested in this proposal will bring my lab one step closer to unlocking this unresolved problem, and will provide insight into how morphological and behavioural diversity is generated over evolutionary time.