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Full-Text Articles in Agriculture
Polymorphism And Plasticity In The Termite Caste System, Austin Merchant
Polymorphism And Plasticity In The Termite Caste System, Austin Merchant
Theses and Dissertations--Entomology
Developmental plasticity, manifested as a caste system, is integral to the success of eusocial insects because of the way in which it decouples the various tasks that a single, solitary organism would normally be responsible for, allowing individuals to specialize towards their given roles while keeping vulnerable members of the colony, such as those responsible for reproduction, safe from harm. Termites exhibit particularly complex caste systems that can be divided into three types of castes: workers perform manual labor, such as foraging and brood care; soldiers defend the nest; and reproductives lay eggs. Each of these castes, as well as …
Computational Identification And Molecular Verification Of Mirna In Eastern Subterranean Termites (Reticulitermes Flavipes), Tian Yu
Theses and Dissertations--Entomology
Reticulitermes flavipes is one of the most common termite species in the world, and has been an intriguing research model due to its ecological and biological and economic significance. The fundamental biological question addressed by this study is to elucidate the role of miRNAs in termite development and how miRNA can influence labor division. miRNAs are short non-coding RNAs that have an important role in gene regulation at post-transcriptional level, and can potentially be involved in the regulation of caste polyphenism. Using a computational approach, I identified 167 conserved and 33 novel miRNAs in the dataset. miR-iab-4 and 19 other …