The Neurogenomic State Underlying Selfish and Altruistic Aggression in Honey Bees (Apis mellifera)

I studied aggression using the eusocial Western honey bee, Apis mellifera, as it displays aggression in altruistic and selfish contexts, allowing comparisons that improve our understanding regarding the molecular biology and neurogenomics underlying this ecologically important behaviour. Workers exhibit altruistic aggression to protect their colony while queens exhibit selfish aggression to gain reproductive control within their colony. I hypothesized that the neurogenomic state associated with altruistic aggression of worker bees is more evolutionarily derived than that associated with selfish aggression of queens. Using RNAseq I compared the neurotranscriptome of at-rest and aggressive workers and queens. Classifying the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) of workers and queens as taxonomically-restricted or conserved as well as comparing these DEGs to that of solitary species both revealed that worker altruistic aggression DEGs are not more evolutionary derived than queen selfish aggression DEGs. These comparative analyses help reveal the molecular underpinnings of aggression in honey bees.