ArticleDie Naturwissenschaften2013
A survey of DNA methylation across social insect species, life stages, and castes reveals abundant and caste-associated methylation in a primitively social wasp.
Article in Die Naturwissenschaften, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 54 citations in OpenAlex.
- Evolutionary Transitions in Social Behavior are Associated With Convergent and Partially Reversible Expansions of Transcription Factor Binding Sites.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Epigenetic Mechanisms inCurrent issues in molecular biology · 2025Review
- Repeated Shifts in Sociality Are Associated With Fine-tuning of Highly Conserved and Lineage-Specific Enhancers in a Socially Flexible Bee.Molecular biology and evolution · 2024Article
- Article
- Epigenetics Mechanisms of Honeybees: Secrets of Royal Jelly.Epigenetics insights · 2023Review
- Conservation Biology and Reproduction in a Time of Developmental Plasticity.Biomolecules · 2022Review
- The role of epigenetics, particularly DNA methylation, in the evolution of caste in insect societies.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Review
- Insecticide exposure affects intergenerational patterns of DNA methylation in the Colorado potato beetle,Evolutionary applications · 2021Article
- Bumblebee Workers Show Differences in Allele-Specific DNA Methylation and Allele-Specific Expression.Genome biology and evolution · 2020Article
- Methylation and gene expression differences between reproductive and sterile bumblebee workers.Evolution letters · 2019Article
- MeDIP-seq and nCpG analyses illuminate sexually dimorphic methylation of gonadal development genes with high historic methylation in turtle hatchlings with temperature-dependent sex determination.Epigenetics & chromatin · 2017Article
- Article
- Genome methylation patterns across castes and generations in a parasitoid wasp.Ecology and evolution · 2016Article
- Thermoregulation of individual paper wasps (Polistes dominula) plays an important role in nest defence and dominance battles.Die Naturwissenschaften · 2015Article
- Article
- Eusocial insects as emerging models for behavioural epigenetics.Nature reviews. Genetics · 2014Review
- A parent-of-origin effect on honeybee worker ovary size.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2014Article
- Epigenetic modifications and their relation to caste and sex determination and adult division of labor in the stingless bee Melipona scutellaris.Genetics and molecular biologyArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
DNA methylation plays an important role in the epigenetic control of developmental and behavioral plasticity, with connections to the generation of striking phenotypic differences between castes (larger, reproductive queens and smaller, non-reproductive workers) in honeybees and ants. Here, we provide the first comparative investigation of caste- and life stage-associated DNA methylation in several species of bees and vespid wasps displaying different levels of social organization. Our results reveal moderate levels of DNA methylation in most bees and wasps, with no clear relationship to the level of sociality. Strikingly, primitively social Polistes dominula paper wasps show unusually high overall DNA methylation and caste-related differences in site-specific methylation. These results suggest DNA methylation may play a role in the regulation of behavioral and physiological differences in primitively social species with more flexible caste differences.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.