Environmental and genetic influences on queen and worker body size in the social wasp Vespula maculifrons |
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Authors: | J L Kovacs E A Hoffman S M Marriner J A Rekau M A D Goodisman |
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Institution: | (1) School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 310 Ferst Drive, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA;(2) Department of Biology, University of Central Florida, 4000 Central Florida Blvd., Orlando, FL 32816, USA; |
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Abstract: | Many social insects exhibit morphologically distinct worker and queen castes that perform different functions. These functional
differences may generate unique selection regimes operating on body size. For example, queens may be under directional selection
for large body size, whereas directional selection on worker body size may be limited. Such contrasting selection pressures
may differentially affect levels of genetic variation associated with size variation in the two castes. This study sought
to determine if genetic effects underlying phenotypic differences varied between the worker and queen castes of the social
wasp Vespula maculifrons. We predicted that directional selection would remove genetic variation associated with size differences in the queen caste,
whereas a lack of directional selection would tend to maintain genetic variation associated with size differences in the worker
caste. We thus (1) calculated broad and narrow sense heritabilities for several morphological traits, (2) examined whether
some paternal genotypes produced more morphologically diverse offspring than others, and (3) determined whether trait size
variation was associated with genetic variation within colonies. We found that few morphological traits were significantly
heritable, indicating that little genetic variance for those traits existed within our study population. We also found that
some patrilines produced more morphologically variable offspring than others, suggesting a role of genotype in phenotypic
plasticity. And finally, no significant correlations between genetic diversity arising from multiple mating by queens within
colonies and trait variation in either caste were found. Overall, our findings indicate a weak effect of genotype on both
worker and queen body size variation and are suggestive of a large environmental influence on morphological trait size. Moreover,
our results do not indicate that levels of genetic variation underlying size variation differ substantially between castes
in this species. |
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