GSE124129
Kin recognition: neurogenomic response to sib mating avoidance in a parasitic wasp
Sib mating increase homozygosity and can lead to inbreeding depression. Selective pressures have favored the evolution of kin recognition and sib avoidance in mate choice. Such avoidance behavior has been recorded in the parasitoid wasp Venturia canescens where the sex determining system (single-locus complementary sex determination, sl-csd) introduces an extra short-term cost to inbreeding; females preferentially mate with unrelated males. The genetics underlying mate choice of females and kin recognition remains largely unexplored. Here we analyzed the head transcriptomic changes after exposure to distinct stimulus: courtship by unrelated male or courtship by brother, while transcriptome of females alone was used as control. Our results demonstrate that male courtship provokes a major transcriptome reprogramming in females heads. The transcriptomic response is highly dependent on the compatibility of the courting male. We subdivided the socially responsive genes using an integrative gene network analysis, we highlighted genes regulated by courtship, whatever the relatedness of the courting male. We also showed that the regulation of some peculiar group of genes is very specific of compatible male courtship, while others are regulated only by incompatible male courtship. We suggest that those different transcriptomic responses lead to mating decision or sib mating avoidance behavior observed in this species. Overall design: Venturia canescens females head transcriptome after 10 minutes : i) courtship by compatible male (unrelated); ii) courtship by incompatible male (brother); iii) isolated (control). X 3 biological replicates; X 2 technical replicates (18 RNAseq librairies)