Evolutionary Genomic of Sociality in Beetles

尽管群居性在昆虫中很少见，但各种类型的群居生活方式已经在广泛的分类群中零星地进化出来。社会性的范围从亚社会性物种的亲代照顾后代到社会性昆虫（如蚂蚁、一些蜜蜂、黄蜂和白蚁）中具有生殖劳动分工的复杂群体。一些比较研究揭示了与社会进化有关的广泛的基因组特征，特别是在膜翅目动物（主要是蚂蚁和蜜蜂）和白蚁中。然而，关于甲虫社会性的基因组起源或从独居生活到亚社会性的早期转变，人们知之甚少。这是一个重要的遗漏，因为至少在11个甲虫科中发生的亚社会性被认为是迈向社会性的重要第一步。在我们的项目中，我们的目标是通过研究与甲虫社会性进化相关的基因组特征来缩小这一差距。我们特别关注与社会进化早期阶段相关的基因组机制，并旨在将这些分子信号与那些与后期社会发展相关的分子信号区分开来。我们建议研究两个甲虫科（腐尸甲虫和象鼻虫）的几个物种，它们涵盖了亚社会性的几个层次，两个兼性社会性的起源和一个专性社会性的起源。通过广泛的基因组和转录组学分析，我们计划推断基因组内容、转录调控、蛋白质进化和表达模式的详细变化，这些变化与从独居生活到亚社会生活的转变以及向义务社会生活的进一步阐述有关。我们将通过研究纯化和正选择的影响，以及由转座因子活性引起的基因组和转录组剧变来支持这些推论。在社会进化的早期阶段，我们期望发现导致与亲代抚育相关的表达模式出现的调节变化。更大的适应性变化，特别是那些影响沟通、营养和免疫的变化，预计将在蛀木象鼻虫向义务性群居性发展的过程中发生。通过对所有昆虫群居起源（膜翅目、等翅目和鞘翅目）的基因组比较，我们旨在确定与从独居物种到群居物种的罕见进化过程普遍相关的分子机制。此外，通过将这些基因组和转录组学分析与实验室操作和RNAi实验相结合，我们的目标是确定对社会行为不可或缺的候选基因家族和网络。这个项目可以使我们更深入地了解与亚社会性从独居祖先出现相关的基因组和调控机制，以及它在最终向社会性过渡的罕见进展。

Although sociality is rare in insects, various types of social lifestyles have evolved sporadically across a broad range of taxa. Sociality ranges from parental care of offspring in subsocial species to complex colonies with division of reproductive labour in eusocial insects, such as in ants, as well as some bees, wasps and termites. Several comparative studies have revealed a broad range of genomic signatures related to the evolution of eusociality, especially in Hymenoptera (mainly ants and bees) and termites. However, little is known about the genomic origins of sociality in beetles or on the early transitions from solitary living to subsociality.This is an important omission since subsociality, which occurs in at least 11 beetle families, is recognised as an important first step towards eusociality. With our project we aim to close this gap by investigating the genomic signatures related to the evolution of sociality in beetles. We put a particular focus on genomic mechanisms linked to the early stages of social evolution and aim to distinguish these molecular signals from those related to later elaborations towards eusociality. We propose to study several species from two beetle families (carrion beetles and weevils) that cover several levels of subsociality, two origins of facultative and one origin of obligate eusociality. With a broad range of genomic and transcriptomic analyses, we plan to infer detailed changes in genomic content, transcriptional regulation, protein evolution, and expression patterns, that are related to the transitions from solitary to subsocial living and then the further elaborations towards obligate eusociality. We will support these inferences with investigations into the influence of purifying and positive selection, as well as genomic and transcriptomic upheavals caused, for instance, by transposable element activity. In the early stages of social evolution, we expect to find regulatory changes leading to the emergence of expression patterns associated with parental care. Greater adaptive changes, especially those affecting communication, nutrition, and immunity, are expected to occur along the progression towards obligate eusociality in wood-boring weevils. With genomic comparisons across all origins of insect eusociality (Hymenoptera, Isoptera and Coleoptera), we aim to identify molecular mechanisms that are universally associated with the rare evolutionary progressions from solitary to eusocial species. Moreover, by combining these genomic and transcriptomic analyses with lab-based manipulations and RNAi experiments we aim to identify candidate gene families and networks that are integral to social behaviour. This project can bring us closer to understanding the genomic and regulatory mechanisms associated with the emergence of subsociality from solitary ancestors, and its rare advancement along the ultimate transition towards eusociality.