TY - JOUR AU - Graham, Allie M. AU - Munday, Michael D. AU - Kaftanoglu, Osman AU - Page, Robert E. AU - Amdam, Gro V. AU - Rueppell, Olav PY - 2011 DA - 2011/04/13 TI - Support for the reproductive ground plan hypothesis of social evolution and major QTL for ovary traits of Africanized worker honey bees (Apis melliferaL.) JO - BMC Evolutionary Biology SP - 95 VL - 11 IS - 1 AB - The reproductive ground plan hypothesis of social evolution suggests that reproductive controls of a solitary ancestor have been co-opted during social evolution, facilitating the division of labor among social insect workers. Despite substantial empirical support, the generality of this hypothesis is not universally accepted. Thus, we investigated the prediction of particular genes with pleiotropic effects on ovarian traits and social behavior in worker honey bees as a stringent test of the reproductive ground plan hypothesis. We complemented these tests with a comprehensive genome scan for additional quantitative trait loci (QTL) to gain a better understanding of the genetic architecture of the ovary size of honey bee workers, a morphological trait that is significant for understanding social insect caste evolution and general insect biology. SN - 1471-2148 UR - https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-11-95 DO - 10.1186/1471-2148-11-95 ID - Graham2011 ER -