Tropes

ScienceDaily_2013 16219.txt

#Wasp transcriptome creates a buzznew 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. Longstanding analyses based on the fossil record holds ants and wasps in a clade known as Vespoidea with bees as a sister group. The team reassess the relationships between the subfamilies of bees wasps and ants and suggest that wasps are part of a separate clade from ants and bees though further genome sequences and comparative data will help to resolve this controversy The dataset offers a first chance to analyse subfamily relationships across large numbers of genes though further work is required before the term Vespoidia could be dropped or reclassified. Sumner says:''This finding would have important general implications for our understanding of eusociality as it would suggest that bees and ants shared an aculeate wasp-like ancestor that ants are wingless wasps and that bees are lost wasps that predacious behaviours.''Their work suggests that novel genes play a much more important role in social behaviour than we previously thought. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Biomed Central Limited. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference e

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