Evolutionary Genomic of Sociality in Beetles

虽然社会性在昆虫中是罕见的，但各种类型的社会生活方式在广泛的分类群中零星地进化。社会性的范围从亚社会性物种的父母照顾后代到真社会性昆虫的复杂群体，如蚂蚁，以及一些蜜蜂，黄蜂和白蚁的生殖劳动分工。几项比较研究揭示了与真社会性进化相关的广泛的基因组特征，特别是在膜翅目（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到亚社会性的早期过渡知之甚少。这是一个重要的遗漏，因为亚社会性至少发生在11个甲虫家族中，被认为是迈向真社会性的重要第一步。通过我们的项目，我们的目标是通过调查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后来对真社会性的阐述相关的分子信号区分开来。我们建议研究几个物种从两个甲虫家庭（腐肉甲虫和象鼻虫），涵盖了几个层次的亚社会性，两个起源的兼性和一个起源的专性真社会性。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，这些变化与从孤独到亚社会生活的过渡有关，然后进一步阐述对专性真社会性。我们将支持这些推论与调查的影响，净化和积极的选择，以及基因组和转录引起的动荡，例如，转座因子的活动。在社会进化的早期阶段，我们期望发现导致与父母照顾相关的表达模式出现的监管变化。更大的适应性变化，特别是那些影响通信，营养和免疫力，预计将发生沿着专性真社会性的进展钻木象甲。通过对昆虫真社会性的所有起源（Hyplutera，Isoptera和Coleoptera）的基因组比较，我们的目标是确定与从孤独到真社会性物种的罕见进化进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基于实验室的操作和RNAi实验相结合，我们的目标是确定与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接近于理解与孤独祖先亚社会性的出现相关的基因组和调控机制，以及它沿着向真社会性的最终过渡的罕见进展。

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.