showing 10 related works from this author
Supplementary Information from Oxidative stress and senescence in social insects—a significant but inconsistent link?
2021
Additional methods tables and figures
Convergent Loss of Chemoreceptors across Independent Origins of Slave-Making in Ants
2022
The evolution of an obligate parasitic lifestyle often leads to the reduction of morphological and physiological traits, which may be accompanied by loss of genes and functions. Slave-maker ants are social parasites that exploit the work force of closely related ant species for social behaviours such as brood care and foraging. Recent divergence between these social parasites and their hosts enables comparative studies of gene family evolution. We sequenced the genomes of eight ant species, representing three independent origins of ant slavery. During the evolution of eusociality, chemoreceptor genes multiplied due to the importance of chemical communication in societies. We investigated ev…
Evidence for a conserved queen-worker genetic toolkit across slave-making ants and their ant hosts
2021
AbstractThe ecological success of social Hymenoptera (ants, bees, wasps) depends on the division of labour between the queen and workers. Each caste is highly specialised in its respective function in morphology, behaviour and life-history traits, such as lifespan and fecundity. Despite strong defences against alien intruders, insect societies are vulnerable to social parasites, such as workerless inquilines or slave-making (dulotic) ants. Here, we investigate whether gene expression varies in parallel ways between lifestyles (slave-making versus host ants) across five independent origins of ant slavery in the “Formicoxenus-group” of the ant tribe Crematogastrini. As caste differences are o…
Comparative transcriptomic analysis of the mechanisms underpinning ageing and fecundity in social insects.
2021
The exceptional longevity of social insect queens despite their lifelong high fecundity remains poorly understood in ageing biology. To gain insights into the mechanisms that might underlie ageing in social insects, we compared gene expression patterns between young and old castes (both queens and workers) across different lineages of social insects (two termite, two bee and two ant species). After global analyses, we paid particular attention to genes of the insulin/insulin-like growth factor 1 signalling (IIS)/target of rapamycin (TOR)/juvenile hormone (JH) network, which is well known to regulate lifespan and the trade-off between reproduction and somatic maintenance in solitary insects…
Oxidative stress and senescence in social insects: A significant but inconsistent link?
2021
The life-prolonging effects of antioxidants have long entered popular culture, but the scientific community still debates whether free radicals and the resulting oxidative stress negatively affect longevity. Social insects are intriguing models for analysing the relationship between oxidative stress and senescence because life histories differ vastly between long-lived reproductives and the genetically similar but short-lived workers. Here, we present the results of an experiment on the accumulation of oxidative damage to proteins, and a comparative analysis of the expression of 20 selected genes commonly involved in managing oxidative damage, across four species of social insects: a termit…
Ox stress Bayes from Oxidative stress and senescence in social insects—a significant but inconsistent link?
2021
zip file containing the original data, the r-script and the r-save files.
Table S3 from Oxidative stress and senescence in social insects—a significant but inconsistent link?
2021
Details of genes identified in our four study species following Corona and colleagues (Corona et al. 2006).
Table S5 A, B, C from Oxidative stress and senescence in social insects—a significant but inconsistent link?
2021
Correlation and p-values between the 20 antioxidant genes; PC axis that separated castes in C. secundus, A. mellifera capensis and E. viridissima; PC axis that separated young and old individuals of P. punctata and E. viridissima.
Table S4 A, B from Oxidative stress and senescence in social insects—a significant but inconsistent link?
2021
Genes unambiguously identified in our study species; Normalised read counts identified in our study species
Table S2 from Oxidative stress and senescence in social insects—a significant but inconsistent link?
2021
Genes involved in the enzymatic antioxidant system following Corona and Robinson (2006) identified in Apis, Anopheles and/or Drosophila.