DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Kin selection and intragenomic conflict in the reproductive behavior of honey bees

University Of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles CA

Investigators

Abstract

Any individual that has both a mother and father will have 50% of their genes coming from each parent. For most traits, these maternal and paternal genes work in harmony. There are, however, some traits in which particular offspring behaviors benefit one parent, but harm the other. This can result in a genetic conflict within an individual's own development and behavior. One potential example of such a conflict concerns whether honey bee workers ought to lay eggs in the presence of their mother, the queen. The father benefits genetically when workers lay eggs; but worker egg laying must come at the expense of the queen's reproductive output. Therefore, the genes in workers that come from their mother ought to oppose worker reproduction and "police" any worker-laid eggs by destroying them. The goal of this project is to mathematically model within-genome conflicts to predict the conditions under which "imprinted" genes might evolve (i.e., genes that produce different effects in offspring depending on whether they come from the mother or father). This project will also selectively breed honey bees to determine if the expression of worker laying and worker policing behavior depends on the parent-of-origin for their genes. Tissue samples then can be preserved for later genomic analyses to find which genes are imprinted. Investigators now recognize that imprinted genes and within-genome conflict are common in nature. Within-genome conflict has been implicated in human health problems, such as some complications that may arise during pregnancy. Thus, understanding the evolution and expression of within-genome conflict in an easily manipulated system, like honey bee colonies, is likely to have broad impacts for understanding general questions of how genotypes are transformed into phenotypes.