Understanding the genetic basis of social behaviour from honey bee and other insect models

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My research program in sociobiology couples genomics and kin theory to detail the genetic basis of social behavior. My research rationale is straightforward: for 50 years kin theory has provided a gene-based explanation for sociality, but for the most part we have yet to identify those genes. Over the past five years, I have capitalized on genomic techniques to identify genes that underscore one quintessentially social trait: reproductive altruism in worker honeybees. I have established that genes encoding egg yolk, royal jelly and dozens of other proteins can mediate differences between reproductively selfish (queen) and altruistic (worker) castes, providing a clear bridge between theory and discovery. Moreover, I have begun to assemble these genes into interaction networks that provide a first description of how sterility is coordinated at the molecular level. My previous Discovery grant has therefore successfully enabled my students and I to push our understanding of sociobiology from gene theory to gene reality. In the next five years I propose to further transform the field in three distinct ways. ******First, our multi-gene networks for worker sterility are of tremendous interest to the sociobiological and apicultural communities. I therefore need to experimentally verify these networks for reproductive function, a process that is best initiated through computer-supported informatics. My students and I will identify, from the network topologies and associated genomics data, what genes are of central importance, what functions are most represented, and what prior ideas regarding the molecular biology of reproductive regulation are supported, if any. Second, we are exploiting a second insect model that complements these findings from the bee. Drosophila is not strictly social, but my lab has discovered that we can use queen bee pheromone to `trick' female flies into a state of bee-like sterility. This remarkable discovery has exciting experimental implications. For one, we can knock-down bee homologues within a Drosophila-based targeted gene expression system. ******Finally, my lab has been juxtaposing our bee-related research against a social insect unrelated to bees. Termites are fully eusocial, yet are rarely used as a vehicle for social gene discovery. My lab is developing the Eastern subterranean termite as a model comparable to the honeybee that we can mine for genes associated with caste and sociality. My lab's construction and analysis of a diploid termite transcriptome will provide a first test of whether termite sociality involves genes different to those employed by haplo-diploid bees. As sociobiology matures towards a more general understanding of social evolution, my three-model research program has also matured; it is well integrated, is ideal for training students in kin theory and in molecular technique, and engages the apicultural and pest control sectors of industry.