Elizabeth Cash

TL;DR: The draft genome sequence of a particularly widespread and well-studied species, the invasive Argentine ant, is reported, which was accomplished using a combination of 454 and Illumina sequencing and community-based funding rather than federal grant support.

TL;DR: Gene networks involved in generating key differences between the queen and worker castes show signatures of increased methylation and suggest that ants and bees may have independently co-opted the same gene regulatory mechanisms for reproductive division of labor.

TL;DR: Following recent reports of genome sequences from other insects that engage in symbioses with beneficial microbes, the A. cephalotes genome provides new insights into the symbiotic lifestyle of this ant and advances the understanding of host–microbe symbioss.

TL;DR: While the "socio-genomes" of ants and the honeybee are broadly characterized by a pervasive pattern of divergence in gene composition and regulation, they preserve lineage-specific regulatory features linked to eusociality, it is proposed that changes in gene regulation played a key role in the origins of insect eussociality.

TL;DR: The dynamic pattern of gene gain and loss of acyl-CoA desaturases in ants may reflect changes in response to ecological diversification and an increased demand for chemical signal variability, and provide an example of how gene family expansions can contribute to lineage-specific adaptations through structural and regulatory changes acting in concert to produce new adaptive phenotypes.