Meeting Abstract
The Asian rhinoceros beetle Trypoxylus dichotomus) represents one of the best examples of exaggerated trait growth. Males of this species have extraordinarily large head horns with respect to body size, which they use in male-male competition for access to females. These horns grow out of scale to body size so that large males have horns much larger than would be expected based on their overall body size. We have previously found that the insulin receptor mediates the exaggerated growth of these sexually dimorphic, condition-dependent horns but does not account for horn allometry. Here we use RNAi to examine the role of other genes that function in horn growth. We have identified several genes, both from the insulin-signaling and other pathways, that appear to be involved both in overall horn growth, and more specifically in mediating the scaling of horn length to overall body size.
