WIKIMEDIA, DR. AJAY BALACHANDRANSome bees are solitary, some live in small groups, and some live in colonies with many thousands of individuals. Studying the genomes of 10 bee species that represent these different living arrangements, scientists have now identified the genetic signatures of communal living. The results, published today (May 14) in Science, reveal that one key feature of increased sociality is an elaboration of gene regulation capacity.
“By doing this comparative analysis they show several clear changes associated with the evolution of the two eusocial groups of bees [including] changes in the regulation of gene expression,” said evolutionary ecologist Laurent Keller of the University of Lausanne in Switzerland who was not involved in the work. “Bees are highly social and we are highly social . . . so it’s interesting to see what are the mechanisms that lead to the evolution of such a complex system.”
While humans are highly social, cooperative creatures, people are not eusocial. A key feature of eusociality is the confinement of reproduction to select individuals—such as the queen in the case of bees. The switch from solitary living to eusociality, much like the transition from unicellular to ...
