Abstract
Social interactions have large effects on individual physiology and fitness. In the immediate sense, social stimuli are often highly salient and engaging. Over longer time scales, competitive interactions often lead to distinct social ranks and differences in physiology and behavior. Understanding how initial responses lead to longer-term effects of social interactions requires examining the changes in responses over time. Here we examined the effects of social interactions on transcriptomic signatures at two times, at the end of a 45-minute interaction and 4 hours later, in female Polistes fuscatus paper wasp foundresses. Female P. fuscatus have variable facial patterns that are used for visual individual recognition, so we separately examined the transcriptional dynamics in the optic lobe and the non-visual brain. Results demonstrate much stronger transcriptional responses to social interactions in the non-visual brain compared to the optic lobe. Differentially regulated genes in response to social interactions are enriched for memory-related transcripts. Comparisons between winners and losers of the encounters revealed similar overall transcriptional profiles at the end of an interaction, which significantly diverged over the course of 4 hours, with losers showing changes in expression levels of genes associated with aggression and reproduction in paper wasps. On nests, subordinate foundresses are less aggressive, do more foraging and lay fewer eggs compared to dominant foundresses and we find losers shift expression of many genes in the non-visual brain, including vitellogenin, related to aggression, worker behavior, and reproduction within hours of losing an encounter. These results highlight the early neurogenomic changes that likely contribute to behavioral and physiological effects of social status changes in a social insect.
Highlights
Social interactions can give rise to a range of immediate as well as long-lasting effects on behavior and physiology [1,2,3,4]
Female P. fuscatus have variable facial patterns that are used for visual individual recognition, so we separately examined the transcriptional dynamics in the optic lobe and the non-visual brain
The overall intensity of aggression in neutral arena trials tends to be relatively mild compared to the fights that can happen when defending a nest from a usurper [28, 31], though the amount of aggression observed here is in line with other published studies of aggression between P. fuscatus foundresses in a neutral arena [44, 48]
Summary
Social interactions can give rise to a range of immediate as well as long-lasting effects on behavior and physiology [1,2,3,4]. Regardless of the nature of the interaction or the outcome, social experiences are expected to have a number of shared effects on the physiology of those involved. Winning versus losing typically cause different physiological and behavioral responses [12,13,14,15,16,17,18] Over repeated interactions, this can lead to profound differences in behavior, physiology, life expectancy, and fitness [4, 19,20,21,22]. Divergent social outcomes lead to different physiological responses, which may be initiated by differences in neurogenomic responses shortly following an interaction
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