Myrmecol. News 11: 107-117; printable
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.25849/myrmecol.news_011:107
- Open Access: CC BY 4.0
- Year: 2008
- Title: Functional genetics and genomics in ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae): The interplay of genes and social life
- Journal: Myrmecological News
- Volume: 11
- Pages: 107-117
- Type of contribution: Review Article
- Supplementary material: No
- Abstract: Ants are among the most remarkable and successful of animal taxa. The success of ants stems from their complex socialsystems, which originate, in part, from the genetic composition of individual society members. In this review, we evaluate progress in understanding how genetic information influences complex phenotypes in ants. We find that researchon the structure of ant genomes has been strong in some areas, such as the exploration of chromosome number, genomesize, and karyotype evolution. However, other areas of structural genomics concerned with gene number and genomecontent remain poorly studied. We also find that substantial progress has been made in successfully documenting genetic effects on phenotypic variation associated with ant social structure. For example, genetic variation influences sexdetermination in some ants and is associated with caste determination in several species. In addition, direct genetic controlof queen and worker phenotypes has been discovered in some ant taxa. Advances have also been made in identifyinggenes whose patterns of expression are associated with ant social structure, development, and caste differentiation. Sufficient data are now available to address important questions regarding the relationship between the evolution of geneexpression and phenotype. Finally, we review for the first time the growing sociogenomics literature in ants aimed ataddressing the molecular bases for social life. Overall, substantial progress has been made in linking molecular geneticinformation to phenotypic variation in ants. However, many important research opportunities related to the molecularbasis of complex phenotypes remain unexploited by the ant research community.
- Key words: Caste, chromosome, evolution of development, genetics, gene expression, genomics, heritability, polyandry, polygyny, review, speciation.
- Publisher: The Austrian Society of Entomofaunistics
- ISSN: Print: 1994-4136 - Online: 1997-3500