Social isolation and group size are associated with divergent gene expression in the brain of ant queens.

ABSTRACT: Social life and isolation pose a complex suite of challenges to organisms prompting significant changes in neural state. However, plasticity in how brains respond to social challenges remains largely unexplored. The fire ants Solenopsis invicta provide an ideal scenario for examining this. Fire ant queens may found colonies individually or in groups of up to 30 queens, depending on key factors such as density of newly mated queens and availability of nesting sites. We artificially manipulated availability of nesting sites to test how the brain responds to social versus solitary colony founding at two key timepoints (early vs. late colony founding) and to group size (large vs. small groups). We adopted a powerful neurogenomic approach to identify even subtle differences of gene expression b

SUBMITTER: Manfredini F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9744527 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature