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Molecular patterns and processes in evolving sociality: lessons from insects

Sumner, Seirian; Favreau, Emeline; Geist, Katie; Toth, Amy L; Rehan, Sandra M; (2023) Molecular patterns and processes in evolving sociality: lessons from insects. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences , 378 (1874) , Article 20220076. 10.1098/rstb.2022.0076. Green open access

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Abstract

Social insects have provided some of the clearest insights into the origins and evolution of collective behaviour. Over 20 years ago, Maynard Smith and Szathmáry defined the most complex form of insect social behaviour—superorganismality—among the eight major transitions in evolution that explain the emergence of biological complexity. However, the mechanistic processes underlying the transition from solitary life to superorganismal living in insects remain rather elusive. An overlooked question is whether this major transition arose via incremental or step-wise modes of evolution. We suggest that examination of the molecular processes underpinning different levels of social complexity represented across the major transition from solitary to complex sociality can help address this question. We present a framework for using molecular data to assess to what extent the mechanistic processes that take place in the major transition to complex sociality and superorganismality involve nonlinear (implying step-wise evolution) or linear (implying incremental evolution) changes in the underlying molecular mechanisms. We assess the evidence for these two modes using data from social insects and discuss how this framework can be used to test the generality of molecular patterns and processes across other major transitions. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Collective behaviour through time’.

Type: Article
Title: Molecular patterns and processes in evolving sociality: lessons from insects
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2022.0076
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2022.0076
Language: English
Additional information: Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
Keywords: superorganismality, sociality, modes of evolution, major transition, genomics, collective behaviour
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences > Genetics, Evolution and Environment
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10160018
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