University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Reproductive plasticity and the evolution of the insect societies

Jones, Beryl M.

Content Files
Appendix_Dataset_C.1.xlsx
Appendix_Dataset_C.2.xlsx
Appendix_Dataset_C.3.xlsx
Appendix_Dataset_C.4.xlsx
Appendix_Dataset_C.5.xlsx
JONES-DISSERTATION-2019.pdf

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/105141

Description

Title
Reproductive plasticity and the evolution of the insect societies
Author(s)
Jones, Beryl M.
Issue Date
2019-03-11
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
Robinson, Gene E.
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Robinson, Gene E.
Committee Member(s)
  • Bell, Alison M.
  • Hudson, Matthew E.
  • Suarez, Andrew V.
Department of Study
School of Integrative Biology
Discipline
Ecol, Evol, Conservation Biol
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Date of Ingest
2019-08-23T20:44:34Z
Keyword(s)
  • social insects
  • social plasticity
  • caste evolution
  • phenotypic plasticity
  • gene regulation
  • Apis mellifera
  • Megalopta genalis
Abstract
A fundamental goal of evolutionary biology is to understand how novel traits arise. Eusociality represents an extreme form of social organization which has evolved independently a number of times across insects and is characterized especially in the Hymenoptera by a novel polyphenism between reproductive (queen) and non-reproductive (worker) castes. While a growing body of research continues to improve our understanding of the mechanisms underlying the development of these castes, less is known about how castes evolved from solitary ancestors. In this dissertation, I leverage naturally-occurring social plasticity in two species of bees to shed light on potential mechanisms of caste evolution across social insects. In Chapter 1, I provide a detailed overview of the work contained within this dissertation. In Chapter 2, I develop a perspective on how ancestral behavioral plasticity may have facilitated the evolution of castes through genetic accommodation. In Chapter 3, I present a de novo transcriptome assembly for Megalopta genalis, a facultatively eusocial sweat bee that exhibits multiple social phenotypes within one population and may therefore represent a transition between solitary and social reproduction. I use this transcriptome in Chapter 4 to identify gene expression differences associated with social phenotypes of M. genalis, and compare these to genes involved in caste determination of other eusocial species as well as genes implicated in the evolution of eusociality through comparative studies of bees. In Chapter 5, I use a high-resolution behavioral tracking system to discover a previously undescribed form of colony organization in honey bees that occurs after a colony loses and is unable to replace its queen and some workers begin to lay eggs. Surprisingly similar to the social variation observed across nests of M. genalis, these colonies of honey bee workers display multiple levels of social plasticity, evoking transitional stages in eusocial evolution associated with the venerable Ovarian Ground Plan Hypothesis. Finally, in Chapter 6, I use transcriptomics and chromatin accessibility analyses of bees in laying worker colonies to explore how changes in brain gene regulation may contribute to variation in colony social organization, with comparative analyses to place this variation in the broader context of caste evolution across social insect lineages.
Graduation Semester
2019-05
Type of Resource
text
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/105141
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2019 Beryl Jones

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Dissertations and Theses - Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology