ArticleEcology and evolution2012
Development and evolution of caste dimorphism in honeybees - a modeling approach.
Article in Ecology and evolution, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers.
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Who cites it
28 citing papers in PubMed.
- A sterility-associated long noncoding RNA involved in honey bee caste determination and adult queen and worker fertility.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- The nature of ant caste allometry.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Social control drove ant evolution.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Innovation in ant larval feeding facilitated queen-worker divergence and social complexity.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Genetic and environmental effects on morphological traits of social phenotypes in wasps.Heredity · 2024Article
- Positive selection in cytochrome P450 genes is associated with gonad phenotype and mating strategy in social bees.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Autophagy Is Required to Sustain Increased Intestinal Cell Proliferation during Phenotypic Plasticity Changes in Honey Bee (International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Article
- Highly efficient site-specific integration of DNA fragments into the honeybee genome using CRISPR/Cas9.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2022Article
- Functional response of the hypopharyngeal glands to a social parasitism challenge in Southern African honey bee subspecies.Parasitology research · 2022Article
- Reproductive Potential Accelerates Preimaginal Development of Rebel Workers inAnimals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2021Article
- Societies to genes: can we get there from here?Genetics · 2021Article
- Diet quantity influences caste determination in honeybees (Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Differential expression of antioxidant system genes in honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) caste development mitigates ROS-mediated oxidative damage in queen larvae.Genetics and molecular biology · 2020Article
- Article
- Feminizer and doublesex knock-outs cause honey bees to switch sexes.PLoS biology · 2019Article
- A genetic switch for worker nutrition-mediated traits in honeybees.PLoS biology · 2019Article
- Differences in the morphology, physiology and gene expression of honey bee queens and workers rearedBiology open · 2018Article
- Evolution of Social Insect Polyphenism Facilitated by the Sex Differentiation Cascade.PLoS genetics · 2016Article
- Extended evolution: A conceptual framework for integrating regulatory networks and niche construction.Journal of experimental zoology. Part B, Molecular and developmental evolution · 2015Article
- The transcriptomic and evolutionary signature of social interactions regulating honey bee caste development.Ecology and evolution · 2015Article
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4 authors.
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Abstract
The difference in phenotypes of queens and workers is a hallmark of the highly eusocial insects. The caste dimorphism is often described as a switch-controlled polyphenism, in which environmental conditions decide an individual's caste. Using theoretical modeling and empirical data from honeybees, we show that there is no discrete larval developmental switch. Instead, a combination of larval developmental plasticity and nurse worker feeding behavior make up a colony-level social and physiological system that regulates development and produces the caste dimorphism. Discrete queen and worker phenotypes are the result of discrete feeding regimes imposed by nurses, whereas a range of experimental feeding regimes produces a continuous range of phenotypes. Worker ovariole numbers are reduced through feeding-regime-mediated reduction in juvenile hormone titers, involving reduced sugar in the larval food. Based on the mechanisms identified in our analysis, we propose a scenario of the evolutionary history of honeybee development and feeding regimes.
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