Trophic eggs affect caste determination in the ant Pogonomyrmex rugosus

Understanding how a single genome creates distinct phenotypes remains a fundamental challenge for biologists. Social insects provide a striking example of polyphenism, with queen and worker castes exhibiting morphological, behavioral, and reproductive differences. Here, we show that trophic eggs, which do not contain an embryo and are primarily regarded as a source of food, play a role in the process of caste determination in the harvester ant Pogonomyrmex rugosus. When first instar larvae were given access to trophic eggs, they mostly developed into workers. By contrast, larvae without access to trophic eggs developed into queens. We found that trophic eggs differ in many ways from viable eggs, including texture, morphology, and their contents of protein, triglycerides, glycogen, sugar, and small RNAs. Moreover, comparison of miRNA fragment size distributions suggests differences in the composition of miRNAs between the two egg types. This is the first demonstration of trophic eggs playing a role in caste determination in social insects.