Testing for conserved and novel mechanisms underlying phenotypic evolution requires a
diversity of genomes available for comparison spanning multiple independent lineages. For …

Parenting in the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides is complex and, unusually, the sex
and number of parents that can be present is flexible. Such flexibility is expected to involve …

Complex social behaviour in Hymenoptera has been hypothesized to evolve by co-opting
reproductive pathways (the ovarian ground plan hypothesis, OGPH) and gene networks (the …

Simple Summary Phenotypic plasticity, the genome producing multiple phenotypes, is
central to an animal’s ability to respond to environmental change, expected or otherwise. A …

The history of life offers plentiful examples of convergent evolution, the independent derivation
of similar phenotypes in distinct lineages [1]. The emergence of convergent phenotypes …

Communication signals are key regulators of social networks and are thought to be under
selective pressure to honestly reflect social status, including dominance status. The odours of …

Background The function of DNA methyltransferase genes of insects is a puzzle, because
an association between gene expression and methylation is not universal for insects. If the …

The whitefly Bemisia tabaci is a globally important crop pest that is difficult to manage through
current commercially available methods. While RNA interference (RNAi) is a promising …

Plasticity in developmental processes gives rise to remarkable environmentally induced
phenotypes. Some of the most striking and well-studied examples of developmental plasticity …

The function of DNA methylation in insects and the DNA methyltransferase (Dnmt) genes
that influence methylation remains uncertain. We used RNA interference to reduce the gene …