Abstract
A key mechanistic hypothesis for the evolution of division of labour in social
insects is that a sharedset of genes co-opted from a common solitary ancestral
ground plan (a genetic toolkit for sociality) regulates caste differentiation
across levels of social complexity. Using brain transcriptome data from nine
species of vespid wasps, we test for overlap in differentially expressed caste
genes and use machine learningmodels to predict castes usjavascript:void(0);ing different gene
sets. We find evidence of a shared genetic toolkit across species representing
different levels of social complexity. We also find evidence of additional finescale
differences in predictive gene sets, functional enrichment and rates of
gene evolution that are related to level of social complexity, lineage and of
colony founding. These results suggest that the concept of a shared genetic
toolkit for sociality may be too simplistic to fully describe the process of the
major transition to sociality.
insects is that a sharedset of genes co-opted from a common solitary ancestral
ground plan (a genetic toolkit for sociality) regulates caste differentiation
across levels of social complexity. Using brain transcriptome data from nine
species of vespid wasps, we test for overlap in differentially expressed caste
genes and use machine learningmodels to predict castes usjavascript:void(0);ing different gene
sets. We find evidence of a shared genetic toolkit across species representing
different levels of social complexity. We also find evidence of additional finescale
differences in predictive gene sets, functional enrichment and rates of
gene evolution that are related to level of social complexity, lineage and of
colony founding. These results suggest that the concept of a shared genetic
toolkit for sociality may be too simplistic to fully describe the process of the
major transition to sociality.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 1046 |
| Journal | Nature Communications |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 24 Feb 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We would like to thank Laura Butters for her help with the morphometric analyses of Brachygastra , Robin Southon, Daniel Fabbro, Liam Crowley and Sam Morris for their assistance in the field, James Carpenter at the American Natural History Museum and Christopher K. Starr for confirming species identification, and the Bristol Genomics Facility for their assistance with library preparations and sequencing. This work was conducted under collection and export permits for Trinidad (Forestry Division Ministry of Agriculture: #001162) and Panama (Autoridad Nacional del Ambiente (ANAM) SE/A-55-13). It was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NE/M012913/2; NE/K011316/1) awarded to SS, and a NERC studentship and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute pre-doctoral fellowship awarded to E.F.B.
Funding Information:
We would like to thank Laura Butters for her help with the morphometric analyses of Brachygastra, Robin Southon, Daniel Fabbro, Liam Crowley and Sam Morris for their assistance in the field, James Carpenter at the American Natural History Museum and Christopher K. Starr for confirming species identification, and the Bristol Genomics Facility for their assistance with library preparations and sequencing. This work was conducted under collection and export permits for Trinidad (Forestry Division Ministry of Agriculture: #001162) and Panama (Autoridad Nacional del Ambiente (ANAM) SE/A-55-13). It was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NE/M012913/2; NE/K011316/1) awarded to SS, and a NERC studentship and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute pre-doctoral fellowship awarded to E.F.B.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, The Author(s).