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Williamson NG, Walsh CM, Kijimoto T. Comparative metabolomic analysis of polyphenic horn development in the dung beetle Onthophagus taurus. PLoS One 2022; 17:e0265222. [PMID: 35298496 PMCID: PMC8929603 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0265222] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/17/2021] [Accepted: 02/25/2022] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Organisms alter their phenotypes in response to changing environmental conditions. The developmental basis of this phenomenon, phenotypic plasticity, is a topic of broad interest in many fields of biology. While insects provide a suitable model for studying the genetic basis of phenotypic plasticity, the physiological aspects of plasticity are not fully understood. Here, we report the physiological basis of polyphenism, an extreme form of phenotypic plasticity by utilizing a dung beetle species, Onthophagus taurus. We highlighted the metabolome between sexes as well as two distinct male morphs—large and small horns. Unlike results from previous transcriptomic studies, the comparative metabolomic study revealed that differences in metabolite level were more prominent between animals with different body sizes than different sexes. Our results also indicate that specific metabolites and biochemical pathways may be active during horn size determination.
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Affiliation(s)
- Naomi G. Williamson
- Division of Plant and Soil Sciences, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia, United States of America
| | - Callee M. Walsh
- Shared Research Facilities, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia, United States of America
| | - Teiya Kijimoto
- Division of Plant and Soil Sciences, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia, United States of America
- * E-mail:
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2
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Vea IM, Shingleton AW. Network-regulated organ allometry: The developmental regulation of morphological scaling. WILEY INTERDISCIPLINARY REVIEWS-DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY 2020; 10:e391. [PMID: 32567243 DOI: 10.1002/wdev.391] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/31/2019] [Revised: 04/30/2020] [Accepted: 05/23/2020] [Indexed: 12/11/2022]
Abstract
Morphological scaling relationships, or allometries, describe how traits grow coordinately and covary among individuals in a population. The developmental regulation of scaling is essential to generate correctly proportioned adults across a range of body sizes, while the mis-regulation of scaling may result in congenital birth defects. Research over several decades has identified the developmental mechanisms that regulate the size of individual traits. Nevertheless, we still have poor understanding of how these mechanisms work together to generate correlated size variation among traits in response to environmental and genetic variation. Conceptually, morphological scaling can be generated by size-regulatory factors that act directly on multiple growing traits (trait-autonomous scaling), or indirectly via hormones produced by central endocrine organs (systemically regulated scaling), and there are a number of well-established examples of such mechanisms. There is much less evidence, however, that genetic and environmental variation actually acts on these mechanisms to generate morphological scaling in natural populations. More recent studies indicate that growing organs can themselves regulate the growth of other organs in the body. This suggests that covariation in trait size can be generated by network-regulated scaling mechanisms that respond to changes in the growth of individual traits. Testing this hypothesis, and one of the main challenges of understanding morphological scaling, requires connecting mechanisms elucidated in the laboratory with patterns of scaling observed in the natural world. This article is categorized under: Establishment of Spatial and Temporal Patterns > Regulation of Size, Proportion, and Timing Comparative Development and Evolution > Organ System Comparisons Between Species.
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Affiliation(s)
- Isabelle M Vea
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA
| | - Alexander W Shingleton
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA
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Lavine MD, Gotoh H, Hayes A, Corley Lavine L. The Insulin Signaling Substrate Chico and the Ecdysone Response Element Broad Both Regulate Growth of the Head Horns in the Asian Rhinoceros Beetle, Trypoxylus dichotomus. Integr Comp Biol 2019; 59:1338-1345. [PMID: 31165143 DOI: 10.1093/icb/icz093] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Males of the Asian rhinoceros beetle, Trypoxylus dichotomus, possess exaggerated head and thoracic horns that scale dramatically out of proportion to body size. While RNAi-mediated knockdowns of the insulin receptor suggest that the insulin signaling pathway regulates nutrition-dependent growth including exaggerated horns, the genes that regulate disproportionate growth have yet to be identified. We used RNAi-mediated knockdown of several genes to investigate their potential role in growth and scaling of the sexually dimorphic, exaggerated head horns of T. dichotomus. Knockdown of the insulin signaling substrate chico and the ecdysone response element broad caused significant decreases in head horn length, while having no or minimal effects on other structures such as elytra and tibiae. However, scaling of horns to body size was not affected by either knockdown. In addition, knockdown of phosphatase and tensin homolog, a negative regulator of the insulin signaling pathway, had no significant effects on any trait. Our results do not identify any candidate genes that may specifically mediate the allometric aspect of horn growth, but they do confirm the insulin signaling pathway as a mediator of conditional trait expression, and importantly implicate the ecdysone signaling pathway, possibly in conjunction with insulin signaling, as an additional mediator of horn growth.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mark D Lavine
- Department of Entomology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164, USA
| | - Hiroki Gotoh
- Faculty of Environmental Earth Sciences, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Hokkaido 0600810, Japan
| | - Abigail Hayes
- Department of Entomology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164, USA
| | - Laura Corley Lavine
- Department of Entomology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164, USA
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Zinna R, Emlen D, Lavine LC, Johns A, Gotoh H, Niimi T, Dworkin I. Sexual dimorphism and heightened conditional expression in a sexually selected weapon in the Asian rhinoceros beetle. Mol Ecol 2018; 27:5049-5072. [PMID: 30357984 DOI: 10.1111/mec.14907] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/21/2017] [Revised: 09/27/2018] [Accepted: 10/01/2018] [Indexed: 12/12/2022]
Abstract
Among the most dramatic examples of sexual selection are the weapons used in battles between rival males over access to females. As with ornaments of female choice, the most "exaggerated" sexually selected weapons vary from male to male more widely than other body parts (hypervariability), and their growth tends to be more sensitive to nutritional state or physiological condition compared with growth of other body parts ("heightened" conditional expression). Here, we use RNAseq analysis to build on recent work exploring these mechanisms in the exaggerated weapons of beetles, by examining patterns of differential gene expression in exaggerated (head and thorax horns) and non-exaggerated (wings, genitalia) traits in the Asian rhinoceros beetle, Trypoxylus dichotomus. Our results suggest that sexually dimorphic expression of weaponry involves large-scale changes in gene expression, relative to other traits, while nutrition-driven changes in gene expression in these same weapons are less pronounced. However, although fewer genes overall were differentially expressed in high- vs. low-nutrition individuals, the number of differentially expressed genes varied predictably according to a trait's degree of condition dependence (head horn > thorax horn > wings > genitalia). Finally, we observed a high degree of similarity in direction of effects (vectors) for subsets of differentially expressed genes across both sexually dimorphic and nutritionally responsive growth. Our results are consistent with a common set of mechanisms governing sexual size dimorphism and condition dependence.
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Affiliation(s)
- Robert Zinna
- Department of Biology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
| | - Douglas Emlen
- Department of Biology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
| | - Laura C Lavine
- Department of Biology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
| | - Annika Johns
- Department of Biology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
| | - Hiroki Gotoh
- Department of Biology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
| | - Teruyuki Niimi
- Department of Biology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
| | - Ian Dworkin
- Department of Biology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
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McCambridge JE, Painting CJ, Walker LA, Holwell GI. Weapon allometry and phenotypic correlation in the New Zealand sheetweb spiderCambridgea plagiata. Biol J Linn Soc Lond 2018. [DOI: 10.1093/biolinnean/bly170] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022]
Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Leilani A Walker
- School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
| | - Gregory I Holwell
- School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
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Zinna RA, Gotoh H, Kojima T, Niimi T. Recent advances in understanding the mechanisms of sexually dimorphic plasticity: insights from beetle weapons and future directions. CURRENT OPINION IN INSECT SCIENCE 2018; 25:35-41. [PMID: 29602360 PMCID: PMC5880310 DOI: 10.1016/j.cois.2017.11.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/22/2017] [Revised: 11/20/2017] [Accepted: 11/21/2017] [Indexed: 05/08/2023]
Abstract
Many traits that are sexually dimorphic, appearing either differently or uniquely in one sex, are also sensitive to an organism's condition. This phenomenon seems to have evolved to limit genetic conflict between traits that are under different selective pressures in each sex. Recent work has shed light on the molecular and developmental mechanisms that govern this condition sensitive growth, and this work has now expanded to encompass both sexual dimorphism as well as conditionally plastic growth, as it seems the two phenomena are linked on a molecular level. In all cases studied the gene doublesex, a conserved regulator of sex differentiation, controls both sexual dimorphism as well as the condition-dependent plastic responses common to these traits. However, the advent of next-generation -omics technologies has allowed researchers to decipher the common and diverged mechanisms of sexually dimorphic plasticity and expand investigations beyond the foundation laid by studies utilizing beetle weapons.
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Affiliation(s)
- Robert A Zinna
- Center for Insect Science, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721-0106, United States.
| | - Hiroki Gotoh
- Lab of Sericulture and Entomoresources, Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-8601, Japan
| | - Takaaki Kojima
- Department of Bioengineering Sciences, Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-8601, Japan
| | - Teruyuki Niimi
- Division of Evolutionary Developmental Biology, National Institute for Basic Biology, Nishigonaka 38, Myodaiji, Okazaki, 444-8585 Aichi, Japan
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Hust J, Lavine MD, Worthington AM, Zinna R, Gotoh H, Niimi T, Lavine L. The Fat-Dachsous signaling pathway regulates growth of horns in Trypoxylus dichotomus, but does not affect horn allometry. JOURNAL OF INSECT PHYSIOLOGY 2018; 105:85-94. [PMID: 29366850 DOI: 10.1016/j.jinsphys.2018.01.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/27/2017] [Revised: 01/19/2018] [Accepted: 01/19/2018] [Indexed: 06/07/2023]
Abstract
Males of the Asian rhinoceros beetle, Trypoxylus dichotomus, possess exaggerated head and thoracic horns that scale dramatically out of proportion to body size. While studies of insulin signaling suggest that this pathway regulates nutrition-dependent growth including exaggerated horns, what regulates disproportionate growth has yet to be identified. The Fat signaling pathway is a potential candidate for regulating disproportionate growth of sexually-selected traits, a hypothesis we advanced in a previous paper (Gotoh et al., 2015). To investigate the role of Fat signaling in the growth and scaling of the sexually dimorphic, condition-dependent traits of the in the Asian rhinoceros beetle T. dichotomus, we used RNA interference to knock down expression of fat and its co-receptor dachsous. Knockdown of fat, and to a lesser degree dachsous, caused shortening and widening of appendages, including the head and thoracic horns. However, scaling of horns to body size was not affected. Our results show that Fat signaling regulates horn growth in T. dichotomus as it does in appendage growth in other insects. However, we provide evidence that Fat signaling does not mediate the disproportionate, positive allometric growth of horns in T. dichotomus.
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Affiliation(s)
- James Hust
- Department of Entomology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164, United States
| | - Mark D Lavine
- Department of Entomology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164, United States
| | - Amy M Worthington
- Department of Entomology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164, United States
| | - Robert Zinna
- Department of Entomology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164, United States
| | - Hiroki Gotoh
- Department of Entomology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164, United States; Lab of Sericulture and Entomoresources, Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences, Nagoya University, Chikusa, Nagoya 464-8601, Japan
| | - T Niimi
- Lab of Sericulture and Entomoresources, Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences, Nagoya University, Chikusa, Nagoya 464-8601, Japan; Division of Evolutionary Developmental Biology, National Institute for Basic Biology, Okazaki, Aichi 444-8585, Japan
| | - Laura Lavine
- Department of Entomology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164, United States.
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Trible W, Kronauer DJC. Caste development and evolution in ants: it's all about size. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2017; 220:53-62. [PMID: 28057828 DOI: 10.1242/jeb.145292] [Citation(s) in RCA: 51] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/29/2022]
Abstract
Female ants display a wide variety of morphological castes, including workers, soldiers, ergatoid (worker-like) queens and queens. Alternative caste development within a species arises from a variable array of genetic and environmental factors. Castes themselves are also variable across species and have been repeatedly gained and lost throughout the evolutionary history of ants. Here, we propose a simple theory of caste development and evolution. We propose that female morphology varies as a function of size, such that larger individuals possess more queen-like traits. Thus, the diverse mechanisms that influence caste development are simply mechanisms that affect size in ants. Each caste-associated trait has a unique relationship with size, producing a phenotypic space that permits some combinations of worker- and queen-like traits, but not others. We propose that castes are gained and lost by modifying the regions of this phenotypic space that are realized within a species. These modifications can result from changing the size-frequency distribution of individuals within a species, or by changing the association of tissue growth and size. We hope this synthesis will help unify the literature on caste in ants, and facilitate the discovery of molecular mechanisms underlying caste development and evolution.
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Affiliation(s)
- Waring Trible
- Laboratory of Social Evolution and Behavior, The Rockefeller University, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Daniel J C Kronauer
- Laboratory of Social Evolution and Behavior, The Rockefeller University, New York, NY 10065, USA
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Cox RM, McGlothlin JW, Bonier F. Evolutionary Endocrinology: Hormones as Mediators of Evolutionary Phenomena: An Introduction to the Symposium. Integr Comp Biol 2016; 56:121-5. [DOI: 10.1093/icb/icw047] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/18/2022] Open
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