D3035: Analysis of the cellular biology of oogenesis between Polistes dominula castes

The paper wasp genus, Polistes, is considered primitively eusocial and displays reproductive plasticity. Temperate Polistes, such as those local to Pennsylvania, follow an annual cycle in which a queen produces only sterile female workers in the spring. She then produces future female reproductives (gynes) during the late summer and early fall. Adult gynes emerge in reproductive diapause. Workers are kept reproductively suppressed while the queen is present, but workers can activate their ovaries to produce males if the queen is lost. Both nutritional and social experience differences between worker-destined and reproductive-destined larvae influence adult ovary development in Polistes: feeding rates and antennal drumming behavior performed by the queen contribute to worker/gyne differentiation. Our goal is to use imaging tools developed for Drosophila to understand the cell biology of Polistes caste differences in ovary development. We are comparing the early stages of oogenesis between the reproductive castes in Polistes dominula using immunostaining along with live imaging. With these tools, we are also quantifying cellular processes such as cell growth, cell division, and apoptotic cell death to distinguish the cell biology of ovary development between the castes. Our analysis spans the full course of oocyte development from the most anterior portion of the ovariole, where stem cells begin to differentiate into the nurse cells and developing oocytes, to the most posterior egg chambers. Our data will yield a new understanding of the cell development basis of reproductive plasticity and caste differences.