Feb. 22,
2013 — New research delivers a sting in the tail for queen wasps.
Scientists have sequenced the active parts of the genome -- or transcriptome --
of primitively eusocial wasps to identify the part of the genome that makes you
a queen or a worker. Their work, published in BioMed Central's open access
journal Genome Biology, shows
that workers have a more active transcriptome than queens. This suggests that
in these simple societies, workers may be the 'jack-of-all-trades' in the
colony -- transcriptionally speaking -- leaving the queen with a somewhat
restricted repertoire.
Studying
primitively eusocial species -- like these wasps -- can tell us about how
sociality evolves. Seirian Sumner and colleagues sequenced transcriptomes from
the eusocial tropical paper wasps -- Polistes
canadensis. All social species ultimately evolved from a solitary ancestor
-- in this case a solitary wasp, who lays the eggs and feeds the brood. But how
does this ancestral solitary phenotype split to produce specialised reproducers
(queens) and brood carers (workers) when a species becomes social?
This paper
gives a first insight into the secret lives of social insects. It shows that
workers retain a highly active transcriptome, possibly expressing many of the
ancestral genes that are required for our solitary wasp to be successful on her
own. Conversely, queens appear to shut down a lot of their genes, presumably in
order to be really good reproducers.
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