Shared genes related to aggression, rather than chemical communication, are associated with reproductive dominance in paper wasps (Polistes metricus)

Table 3 Comparative analyses examining overlap in gene expression between P. metricus , Apis , Drosophila , and Mus

Wasp list	Compared to X	Description of study	Citation	Sig. both	Sig. wasp only	Sig. X only	Sig. neither	p-value
Brain DE	Apis mellifera	Queen vs sterile worker	[41]	77	129	354	498	0.322
Brain DE	Apis mellifera	Queen phero. response	[9]	58	339	384	2263	0.939
Brain DE	*Apis mellifera*	Foragers vs nurses	[42]	106	99	392	487	<0.001
Brain DE	Apis mellifera	Foragers vs nurses	[43]	58	340	254	1478	0.99
Brain DE	Apis mellifera	Aggression (composite)	[43]	85	312	512	2135	0.343
Brain DE	*Apis mellifera*	Aggression (3 contexts)	[43]	5	8	392	2640	0.019
Brain Caste	*Apis mellifera*	Aggression (composite)	[43]	37	82	435	1575	0.022
Brain DE	*D. melanogaster*	Aggression	[44]	49	307	238	2247	0.0184
Brain DE	*Mus musculus*	Maternal aggression	[45]	27	200	77	960	0.033
Brain DE	Mus musculus	Sleeping vs awake	[46]	68	159	323	714	0.692

Brain DE refers to the complete list of transcripts differentially expressed in the brain, “Brain Caste” refers to the subset of genes that are “brain caste-associated”, described in the main text. The number of transcripts overlapping (significant in both, or “Sig. both"), as well as non-overlapping transcripts (significant in wasp only, or ”Sig. wasp only”; significant in the other species, “Sig. X only”; and significant in neither study, “Sig. neither”) and two-tailed p-values from Fisher’s Exact Tests are shown. Lists of genes with significant overlaps are highlighted in bold and a complete list of overlapping transcripts are provided in Additional file 2.

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