Piekarski Patrick K, Valdés-Rodríguez Stephany, Kronauer Daniel J C
Laboratory of Social Evolution and Behavior, The Rockefeller University, New York, NY 10065, USA.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, New York, NY 10065, USA.
Behav Ecol. 2023 Apr 28;34(4):642-652. doi: 10.1093/beheco/arad033. eCollection 2023 Jul-Aug.
Caregivers shape the rearing environment of their young. Consequently, offspring traits are influenced by the genes of their caregivers indirect genetic effects (IGEs). However, the extent to which IGEs are modulated by environmental factors, other than the genotype of social partners (i.e., intergenomic epistasis), remains an open question. Here we investigate how brood are influenced by the genotype of their caregivers in the clonal raider ant, , a species in which the genotype, age and number of both caregivers and brood can be experimentally controlled. First, we used four clonal lines to establish colonies that differed only in the genotype of caregivers and measured effects on foraging activity, as well as IGEs on brood phenotypes. In a second experiment, we tested whether these IGEs are conditional on the age and number of caregivers. We found that caregiver genotype affected the feeding and foraging activity of colonies, and influenced the rate of development, survival, body size, and caste fate of brood. Caregiver genotype interacted with other factors to influence the rate of development and survival of brood, demonstrating that IGEs can be conditional. Thus, we provide an empirical example of phenotypes being influenced by IGE-by-environment interactions beyond intergenomic epistasis, highlighting that IGEs of caregivers/parents are alterable by factors other than their brood's/offspring's genotype.
照料者塑造其幼崽的养育环境。因此，后代的性状会受到照料者基因的影响，即间接遗传效应（IGEs）。然而，除了社会伙伴的基因型（即基因组间上位性）之外，环境因素对间接遗传效应的调节程度仍是一个悬而未决的问题。在此，我们研究在克隆掠夺蚁中，幼虫如何受到其照料者基因型的影响。在这种蚂蚁中，照料者和幼虫的基因型、年龄和数量都可以通过实验进行控制。首先，我们使用四个克隆系建立了仅在照料者基因型上存在差异的蚁群，并测量了其对觅食活动的影响，以及间接遗传效应对幼虫表型的影响。在第二个实验中，我们测试了这些间接遗传效应是否取决于照料者的年龄和数量。我们发现照料者基因型影响了蚁群的喂养和觅食活动，并影响了幼虫的发育速度、存活率、体型和品级命运。照料者基因型与其他因素相互作用，影响幼虫的发育速度和存活率，这表明间接遗传效应可能是有条件的。因此，我们提供了一个实证例子，说明表型会受到基因组间上位性之外的间接遗传效应与环境相互作用的影响，强调照料者/父母的间接遗传效应可被其幼虫/后代基因型以外的因素改变。
