Digest: Gene duplication and social evolution-Using big, open data to answer big, open questions

摘要

What genomic features underpin the evolution of behavioral complexity? Do species exhibiting such complexity have more genes, more complex gene regulation, or both? These questions have driven decades of research in humans and primates. Social insect biologists have wanted to explore these questions in eusocial species for decades (Gadagkar 1997), but have lacked access to appropriately selected genome sequences. With the sequencing efforts of the last decade, a dozen bee genomes are now publicly available (Kapheim et al. 2015), and more are on the way. This growing database allows us to look with ever-increasing detail at the genomic correlates of social evolution within insects (e.g., Kapheim et al. 2015).