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Transcriptome analyses of primitively eusocial wasps reveal novel insights into the evolution of sociality and the origin of alternative phenotypes

Overview of attention for article published in Genome Biology, February 2013
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (97th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (88th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
3 news outlets
blogs
4 blogs
twitter
21 X users
facebook
2 Facebook pages

Citations

dimensions_citation
136 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
261 Mendeley
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1 CiteULike
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Title
Transcriptome analyses of primitively eusocial wasps reveal novel insights into the evolution of sociality and the origin of alternative phenotypes
Published in
Genome Biology, February 2013
DOI 10.1186/gb-2013-14-2-r20
Pubmed ID
Authors

Pedro G Ferreira, Solenn Patalano, Ritika Chauhan, Richard Ffrench-Constant, Toni Gabaldón, Roderic Guigó, Seirian Sumner

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Understanding how alternative phenotypes arise from the same genome is a major challenge in modern biology. Eusociality in insects requires the evolution of two alternative phenotypes - workers, who sacrifice personal reproduction, and queens, who realize that reproduction. Extensive work on honeybees and ants has revealed the molecular basis of derived queen and worker phenotypes in highly eusocial lineages, but we lack equivalent deep-level analyses of wasps and of primitively eusocial species, the latter of which can reveal how phenotypic decoupling first occurs in the early stages of eusocial evolution. RESULTS: We sequenced 20 Gbp of transcriptomes derived from brains of different behavioral castes of the primitively eusocial tropical paper wasp Polistes canadensis. Surprisingly, 75% of the 2,442 genes differentially expressed between phenotypes were novel, having no significant homology with described sequences. Moreover, 90% of these novel genes were significantly upregulated in workers relative to queens. Differential expression of novel genes in the early stages of sociality may be important in facilitating the evolution of worker behavioral complexity in eusocial evolution. We also found surprisingly low correlation in the identity and direction of expression of differentially expressed genes across similar phenotypes in different social lineages, supporting the idea that social evolution in different lineages requires substantial de novo rewiring of molecular pathways. CONCLUSIONS: These genomic resources for aculeate wasps and first transcriptome-wide insights into the origin of castes bring us closer to a more general understanding of eusocial evolution and how phenotypic diversity arises from the same genome.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 21 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 261 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United States 8 3%
Germany 4 2%
United Kingdom 3 1%
Canada 2 <1%
Brazil 1 <1%
Spain 1 <1%
Taiwan 1 <1%
Unknown 241 92%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 74 28%
Researcher 62 24%
Student > Master 33 13%
Student > Bachelor 29 11%
Student > Doctoral Student 11 4%
Other 33 13%
Unknown 19 7%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 184 70%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 29 11%
Neuroscience 4 2%
Computer Science 2 <1%
Immunology and Microbiology 2 <1%
Other 8 3%
Unknown 32 12%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 60. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 28 September 2015.
All research outputs
#707,444
of 25,371,288 outputs
Outputs from Genome Biology
#457
of 4,467 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#4,677
of 205,032 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Genome Biology
#5
of 42 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,371,288 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 97th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 4,467 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 27.6. This one has done well, scoring higher than 89% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 205,032 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 42 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 88% of its contemporaries.