Evolutionary genetics of sociality: experimental tests using termites and bees

社会生物学的一个基本目标是了解复杂的社会行为是如何进化的。从人类到社会性昆虫再到鼹鼠，社会性动物让我们着迷，可能是因为进化在这些少数情况下支持合作和利他主义，而不是冲突和自私。我们从社会进化理论中知道，这些看似非达尔文主义的特征可以通过一种亲属介导的自然选择（称为“亲属选择”）进化，前提是这些特征具有遗传基础。昆虫社会行为的各个方面肯定是进化的，但我们还不知道哪些基因受到选择，或者这些基因如何相互作用，以及它们的环境如何影响社会表型。此外，社会性反过来会影响基因的表达和传递，但如何影响并不总是很清楚。有一点很清楚，为了充分理解社会生活的进化，我们需要从分子的角度来思考。

A fundamental goal of sociobiology is to understand how complex social behaviour evolves. From humans to social insects to mole rats, social animals fascinate us, probably because it is so remarkable that evolution has, in these few cases, favored cooperation and altruism over conflict and selfishness. We know from the theory of social evolution that these seemingly non-Darwinian traits can evolve via a type of kin-mediated natural selection, known as 'kin selection', provided the trait has a genetic basis. Aspects of insect social behaviour are certainly evolved, but we do not yet know which genes are under selection, or how these genes interact with each other and their environment to influence the social phenotype. Moreover, sociality will, in turn, influence the expression and transmission of genes, but it is not always clear how. What is clear is that to fully understand the evolution of social life, we need to think in molecular terms.