ArticleJournal of evolutionary biology2015
Recombination, chromosome number and eusociality in the Hymenoptera.
Article in Journal of evolutionary biology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers.
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26 citing papers in PubMed, 45 citations in OpenAlex.
- Chromosomal rearrangements: tempo and mode of karyotype evolution in Scarabaeoidea.Journal of evolutionary biology · 2026Article
- Retroelement expansions underlie genome evolution in stingless bees.BMC genomics · 2026Article
- The Tree of Sex consortium: a global initiative for studying the evolution of reproduction in eukaryotes.Journal of evolutionary biology · 2025Article
- Unexpectedly low recombination rates and presence of hotspots in termite genomes.Genome research · 2025Article
- Gene Flow Between Populations With Highly Divergent Mitogenomes in the Australian Stingless Bee,Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Drift drives the evolution of chromosome number II: The impact of range size on genome evolution in Carnivora.The Journal of heredity · 2024Article
- Causes and consequences of a complex recombinational landscape in the antGenome research · 2024Article
- Drift drives the evolution of chromosome number I: The impact of trait transitions on genome evolution in Coleoptera.The Journal of heredity · 2024Article
- Article
- Chromosome study of the Hymenoptera (Insecta): from cytogenetics to cytogenomics.Comparative cytogenetics · 2023Review
- Recombination mapping of the Brazilian stingless bee Frieseomelitta varia confirms high recombination rates in social hymenoptera.BMC genomics · 2021Article
- Chromosome number evolves at equal rates in holocentric and monocentric clades.PLoS genetics · 2020Article
- Lineage-specific patterns of chromosome evolution are the rule not the exception in Polyneoptera insects.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Local Variation in Recombination Rates of the Honey Bee (Insectes sociaux · 2020Article
- A database of amphibian karyotypes.Chromosome research : an international journal on the molecular, supramolecular and evolutionary aspects of chromosome biology · 2019Article
- Meiotic drive shapes rates of karyotype evolution in mammals.Evolution; international journal of organic evolution · 2019Article
- Genetic Characterization of Some Neoponera (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) Populations Within the foetida Species Complex.Journal of insect science (Online) · 2018Article
- Low recombination rates in sexual species and sex-asex transitions.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2017Article
- Variation in recombination frequency and distribution across eukaryotes: patterns and processes.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2017Review
- The Evolutionary Dynamics of the Odorant Receptor Gene Family in Corbiculate Bees.Genome biology and evolution · 2017Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 5 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Extraordinarily high rates of recombination have been observed in some eusocial species. The most popular explanation is that increased recombination increases genetic variation among workers, which in turn increases colony performance, for example by increasing parasite resistance. However, support for the generality of higher recombination rates among eusocial organisms remains weak, due to low sample size and a lack of phylogenetic independence of observations. Recombination rate, although difficult to measure directly, is correlated with chromosome number. As predicted, several authors have noted that chromosome numbers are higher among the eusocial species of Hymenoptera (ants, bees and wasps). Here, we present a formal comparative analysis of karyotype data from 1567 species of Hymenoptera. Contrary to earlier studies, we find no evidence for an absolute difference between chromosome number in eusocial and solitary species of Hymenoptera. However, we find support for an increased rate of chromosome number change in eusocial taxa. We show that among eusocial taxa colony size is able to explain some of the variation in chromosome number: intermediate-sized colonies have more chromosomes than those that are either very small or very large. However, we were unable to detect effects of a number of other colony characteristics predicted to affect recombination rate - including colony relatedness and caste number. Taken together, our results support the view that a eusocial lifestyle has led to variable selection pressure for increased recombination rates, but that identifying the factors contributing to this variable selection will require further theoretical and empirical effort.
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