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SOCIAL EVOLUTION

A toolkit for caste differentiation

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The identification of a set of conserved genes that has had stable expression patterns over 120 million years of ant evolution provides a glimpse into the mechanisms that generate queen and worker castes in ants.

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Fig. 1: Gene regulatory networks may shape the evolution of both eusociality and multicellularity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Sarah D. Kocher

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  1. Sarah D. Kocher
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Correspondence to Sarah D. Kocher.

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The author declares no competing interests.

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Kocher, S.D. A toolkit for caste differentiation. Nat Ecol Evol 2, 1689–1690 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-018-0705-1

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