| Popis: |
The evolution of eusocial behavior is one of the great riddles of evolutionary biology. The recent flood of genomic and expression data has the potential to advance our understanding of this biological phenomenon. In this study I have applied the method of genomic phylostratigraphy to four species of eusocial hymenopterans as models of eusocial behavior. I have demonstrated that genomic phylostratigraphy and the transcriptome age index can be used to detect broad expression changes, such as those arising as a consequence of eusocial behavior. My results indicate that the composition of hypopharyngeal gland secretions in the honey bee (Apis mellifera) is under significant environmental influence, and that the genes encoding the principal components of royal jelly (MRJP) are under positive selection, suggesting that they likely play a signalling role in regulating the social structure of the honey bee colony. |
