Fig. 2. Experimental setup.

a Insight into a Cryptotermes secundus colony with neotenic queen and king (darker) and workers (paler). b Experiment 1: the Queen network experiment compared gene expression between queens versus workers. It included 14 untreated queens and 14 untreated workers. c Experiment 2: the JH-manipulation experiment compared gene expression between precocene-treated, solvent-treated, and untreated queens. For the latter, we pharmacologically reduced JH in twelve queens by topical application of 1.5 µl of 0.1% precocene in acetone on head and thorax (“precocene treatment”). To control for solvent-induced effects, we topically applied 1.5 µl of pure acetone to seven queens (“solvent treatment”). As a treatment control we used six completely untreated queens (“control”).