TY - JOUR AU - Berens, Ali J. AU - Hunt, James H. AU - Toth, Amy L. PY - 2015 DA - 2015/03/25 TI - Nourishment level affects caste-related gene expression in Polistes wasps JO - BMC Genomics SP - 235 VL - 16 IS - 1 AB - Social insects exhibit striking phenotypic plasticity in the form of distinct reproductive (queen) and non-reproductive (worker) castes, which are typically driven by differences in the environment during early development. Nutritional environment and nourishment during development has been shown to be broadly associated with caste determination across social insect taxa such as bees, wasps, and termites. In primitively social insects such as Polistes paper wasps, caste remains flexible throughout adulthood, but there is evidence that nourishment inequalities can bias caste development with workers receiving limited nourishment compared to queens. Dominance and vibrational signaling are behaviors that have also been linked to caste differences in paper wasps, suggesting that a combination of nourishment and social factors may drive caste determination. To better understand the molecular basis of nutritional effects on caste determination, we used RNA-sequencing to investigate the gene expression changes in response to proteinaceous nourishment deprivation in Polistes metricus larvae. SN - 1471-2164 UR - https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-015-1410-y DO - 10.1186/s12864-015-1410-y ID - Berens2015 ER -