QUEEN-WORKER COADAPTATION AND CONFLICT IN A PRIMITIVELY EUSOCIAL BEE

原始社会蜜蜂中的蜂王-工蜂的适应和冲突

基本信息

批准号：
NE/M003191/1
负责人：
Jeremy Field
金额：
$ 52.02万
依托单位：
University of Sussex
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2015
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2015 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FM003191%2F1
关键词：
QUEEN WORKER COADAPTATION CONFLICT PRIMITIVELY

项目摘要

Understanding the conflicts of interest that occur within families has been a major focus of research in evolutionary biology: unless they are genetically identical, the precise evolutionary interests of individual family members often differ. Family conflicts have been particularly well studied in social insects, where there is potential conflict between the queen and her workers over questions such as who should lay the eggs, what sex-ratio of offspring to produce, and the length of tenure of the queen. However, while much is now known about the evolutionary endpoint of these conflicts, little is known about the underlying genetic architecture and the pattern of reciprocal adaptation between queen- and worker-expressed genes. This proposal will investigate queen-worker interactions in the UK social sweat bee Lasioglossum malachurum (Hymenoptera: Halictidae). A key method will be cross-fostering: just before workers reach adulthood, queens will be switched between nests. Because cross-fostered queens no longer share a nest with genetically related workers (which would normally be their own offspring), cross-fostering means that (1) queen and worker influences on offspring characteristics can be separated; (2) any subsequent correlations between the behaviour of a queen and her workers (now in separate nests) must reflect genes inherited by workers from queens rather than effects of the common environment; (3) 'mismatches' between queen and worker characteristics are generated - mismatches of the kind expected during on-going evolutionary conflict, but not normally available to study because evolution has largely eliminated them.By using a combination of cross-fostering, and DNA fingerprinting to determine whether each offspring was produced by queen or workers, the work will achieve the following objectives.Objective 1: Test whether evolution has led to a correlation between a queen's ability to prevail in reproductive conflicts with the workers in her new nest, and the ability of her workers to prevail in the same conflicts with an unrelated queen. Objective 2: Carry out the first direct test of whether queens normally manipulate worker size and number in their own interests, for example by reducing worker size and therefore a worker's ability to compete with the queen over offspring production.Objective 3: Separate queen influences from worker influences on body size, a key offspring trait, and investigate the underlying genetic architecture theoretically.Objective 4: Carry out the first direct test of a key hypothesis for the evolution of helping in Hymenoptera: the hypothesis that a larger group of workers leads to a more female-biased sex-ratio of offspring. Because workers are more closely related to female- than male offspring of the queen, such an effect could facilitate helping. The study system allows exceptionally large sample sizes to be obtained in the field, where natural selection operates. The overall result will be the most comprehensive understanding to date of the process of queen-worker coevolution, including the first tests of several key hypotheses. Empirical work will be carried out at the University of Sussex, and the project will involve collaboration with Project Partner Prof Mathias Kölliker (University of Basel, Switzerland).

了解家庭内部发生的利益冲突一直是进化生物学研究的一个主要焦点：除非它们在基因上相同，否则个体家庭成员的精确利益进化通常会有所不同。蜂王和她的工蜂之间在诸如谁应该产卵、产生后代的性别比例以及蜂王的任期长度等问题上存在潜在的冲突。然而，尽管现在人们对这些问题的进化终点已经了解很多。冲突，对潜在的遗传结构和模式知之甚少该提案将研究英国社会性汗蜂 Lasioglossum malachurum（膜翅目：Halictidae）中蜂王与工蜂之间的相互作用。一个关键方法是交叉培育：在工蜂成年之前，蜂王。因为交叉养育的蚁后不再与有遗传关系的工蜂（通常是它们自己的后代）共享一个巢穴，所以交叉养育意味着(1) 蜂王和工蜂对后代特征的影响是可以分开的；(2) 蜂王和工蜂（现在在不同的巢中）的行为之间的任何相关性都必须反映工蜂从蜂王那里继承的基因，而不是共同环境的后续影响。 (3) 蜂王和工蜂特征之间产生了“不匹配”——这种不匹配是在持续的进化冲突中所预期的，但通常无法用于研究，因为进化已在很大程度上消除了它们。通过使用交叉培育和 DNA 的组合指纹识别以确定每个后代是否目标 1：测试进化是否导致蚁后在与新巢中的工蚁发生生殖冲突时获胜的能力与工蚁获胜的能力之间存在相关性目标 2：首次直接测试蚁后是否通常会为了自身利益而操纵工蚁的大小和数量，例如通过减少工蚁的大小，从而降低工蚁与蚁后争夺后代的能力。生产。目标3：将蜂王与工蜂对体型（后代的一个关键性状）的影响分开，并从理论上研究潜在的遗传结构。目标 4：对膜翅目进化的关键假说进行首次直接检验：该假说认为，较大的群体由于工蜂与蜂王的雌性后代的关系比与雄性后代的关系更密切，因此该研究系统可以帮助获得异常大的样本量。场，在哪里总体结果将是迄今为止对蚁后-工蚁共同进化过程的最全面的理解，包括将在苏塞克斯大学进行的几个关键假设的首次测试，该项目将涉及。与项目合作伙伴 Mathias Kölliker 教授（瑞士巴塞尔大学）的合作。