ArticlePLoS genetics2016
Evolution of Social Insect Polyphenism Facilitated by the Sex Differentiation Cascade.
Article in PLoS genetics, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 57 citations in OpenAlex.
- Developmental transcriptomics inGenome research · 2025Article
- From Egg to Adult: A Developmental Table of the Ant Monomorium pharaonis.Journal of experimental zoology. Part B, Molecular and developmental evolution · 2024Article
- Sex- and caste-specific developmental responses to juvenile hormone in an ant with maternal caste determination.The Journal of experimental biology · 2024Article
- Social administration of juvenile hormone to larvae increases body size and nutritional needs for pupation.Royal Society open science · 2023Article
- A Mediator subunit imparts robustness to a polyphenism decision.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Sexual dimorphism as a facilitator of worker caste evolution in ants.Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Gene expression during larval caste determination and differentiation in intermediately eusocial bumblebees, and a comparative analysis with advanced eusocial honeybees.Molecular ecology · 2021Article
- Epigenetic Molecular Mechanisms in Insects.Neotropical entomology · 2020Review
- Tissue-specific developmental regulation and isoform usage underlie the role ofRoyal Society open science · 2020Article
- Developmental plasticity shapes social traits and selection in a facultatively eusocial bee.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020Article
- Comparative transcriptomics of social insect queen pheromones.Nature communications · 2019Article
- Doublesex Evolution Is Correlated with Social Complexity in Ants.Genome biology and evolution · 2018Article
- A sulfotransferase dosage-dependently regulates mouthpart polyphenism in the nematode Pristionchus pacificus.Nature communications · 2018Article
- Queen Control or Queen Signal in Ants: What Remains of the Controversy 25 Years After Keller and Nonacs' Seminal Paper?Journal of chemical ecology · 2018Review
- Building a new research framework for social evolution: intralocus caste antagonism.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2018Review
- TGFβ signaling related genes are involved in hormonal mediation during termite soldier differentiation.PLoS genetics · 2018Article
- Life-history evolution in ants: the case ofProceedings. Biological sciences · 2017Review
- Accelerated Evolution of Developmentally Biased Genes in the Tetraphenic Ant Cardiocondyla obscurior.Molecular biology and evolution · 2017Article
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The major transition to eusociality required the evolution of a switch to canalize development into either a reproductive or a helper, the nature of which is currently unknown. Following predictions from the 'theory of facilitated variation', we identify sex differentiation pathways as promising candidates because of their pre-adaptation to regulating development of complex phenotypes. We show that conserved core genes, including the juvenile hormone-sensitive master sex differentiation gene doublesex (dsx) and a krüppel homolog 2 (kr-h2) with putative regulatory function, exhibit both sex and morph-specific expression across life stages in the ant Cardiocondyla obscurior. We hypothesize that genes in the sex differentiation cascade evolved perception of alternative input signals for caste differentiation (i.e. environmental or genetic cues), and that their inherent switch-like and epistatic behavior facilitated signal transfer to downstream targets, thus allowing them to control differential development into morphological castes.
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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.