title: Chapter 6. Comparative genomic approaches to investigate molecular traits specific to social insects.
abstract: Ageing is a feature of nearly all known organisms and, by its connection to survival, appears to trade off with fecundity. However, in some organisms such as in queens of social insects, this negative relation appears reversed and individuals live long and reproduce much. Since new experimental techniques, transcriptomes and genomes of many social insects have recently become available, a comparison of these data in a phylogenetic framework becomes feasible. This allows the study of general trends, species specific oddities and evolutionary dynamics of the molecular properties and changes which underlie ageing, fecundity and the reversal of this negative association. In the framework of social insect evolution, we review the most important recent insights, computational methods, their applications and data resources which are available.
authors.affiliation: Evolutionary Biology and Ecology, Institute of Biology I (Zoology), University of Freiburg, Hauptstrasse 1, D-79104 Freiburg, Germany. Electronic address: daniel.elsner@biologie.uni-freiburg.de.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Elsner
authors.affiliation: Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity, Westfalian Wilhelms University, Hüfferstrasse 1, D-48149 Münster, Germany.
authors.forename: Lukas Pm
authors.initials: LP
authors.lastname: Kremer
authors.affiliation: Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity, Westfalian Wilhelms University, Hüfferstrasse 1, D-48149 Münster, Germany.
authors.forename: Nicolas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Arning
authors.affiliation: Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity, Westfalian Wilhelms University, Hüfferstrasse 1, D-48149 Münster, Germany.
authors.forename: Erich
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Bornberg-Bauer
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D023281:Genomics; D007313:Insecta / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics*; D010641:Phenotype; D010802:Phylogeny