Developmental plasticity shapes social traits and selection in a facultatively eusocial bee.

ABSTRACT: Developmental plasticity generates phenotypic variation, but how it contributes to evolutionary change is unclear. Phenotypes of individuals in caste-based (eusocial) societies are particularly sensitive to developmental processes, and the evolutionary origins of eusociality may be rooted in developmental plasticity of ancestral forms. We used an integrative genomics approach to evaluate the relationships among developmental plasticity, molecular evolution, and social behavior in a bee species (Megalopta genalis) that expresses flexible sociality, and thus provides a window into the factors that may have been important at the evolutionary origins of eusociality. We find that differences in social behavior are derived from genes that also regulate sex differentiation and metamorphosi

SUBMITTER: Kapheim KM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7306772 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature