The reproductive groundplan hypothesis being tested in the progressive provisioner wasp Zethus miniatus (Vespidae, Eumeninae)

• Grant number: 24/04588-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: August 01, 2024
• End date: January 27, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Zoology - Animal Behavior
• Principal Investigator: Fábio Santos do Nascimento
• Grantee: Jéferson Pedrosa dos Santos
• Supervisor: Seirian Sumner
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto (FFCLRP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University College London (UCL), England
• Associated to the scholarship: 22/01427-7 - Effects of juvenile hormone on the division of labor and its relationship with cuticular hydrocarbon dynamics in Scaptotrigona aff. depilis (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Meliponini), BP.DR

Abstract

The reproductive groundplan hypothesis is fundamental to understanding the mechanism by which previously solitary breeding insects went on to live in social groups characterized by the presence of an advanced reproductive division of labour. The transition from a solitary to a social lifestyle in insects brought cooperative behaviour and the emergence of division of labour. The division of labour in social insects can occur due to age polyethism: young individuals care for the young and older individuals specialize in foraging. Reproduction is usually carried out by the queens, while workers carry out maintenance tasks of the colony, such as foraging and nest construction. Studying simple levels of sociality can provide hints of how social behaviour evolved in social insects. The reproductive ground plan hypothesis argues that the genetic networks controlling the reproductive cycle of pre-social ancestors not only lie at the basis of the queen and worker phenotypes but also underlie the division of labour among non-reproductive social insect workers. We aim to test the reproductive ground plan hypothesis in the wasp Zethus miniatus, in an attempt to study the mechanisms by which sociality may have evolved from solitary state. This species is interesting because it lives in aggregations with other females, and expresses a rudimentary division of labour and progressive provisioning, meaning that they care for the young, feeding the larvae continuously during development. We hypothesize that different worker phenotypes within the same colony is controlled by differential gene expression. Because nest behaviours are well characterized in the literature, our aim will be testing the groundplan hypothesis and compare the brain transcriptomic signatures and reproductive phenotypes in Zethus miniatus. from queen-like and worker-like behaviour females groups. Among the candidate genes, we expect to see genes related to reproduction. Furthermore, those results will enable us to test the reproductive groundplan hypothesis in a molecular level.