Social arthropods such as termites, ants, and bees are among others the most successful
animal groups on earth. However, social arthropods face an elevated risk of infections due …

Understanding the role of genetic and nongenetic variants in modulating phenotypes is
central to our knowledge of adaptive responses to local conditions and environmental …

Variation in DNA methylation patterns among genes, individuals, and populations appears
to be highly variable among taxa, but our understanding of the functional significance of this …

Across several animal taxa, the evolution of sociality involves a suite of characteristics, a
“social syndrome,” that includes cooperative breeding, reproductive skew, primary female …

Social spiders have remarkably low species-wide genetic diversities, potentially increasing
the relative importance of microbial symbionts for host fitness. Here we explore the bacterial …

How species thrive in a wide range of environments is a major focus of evolutionary biology.
For many species, limited genetic diversity or gene flow among habitats means that …

Social spiders of the species Stegodyphus dumicola live in communal nests with hundreds
of individuals and are characterized by extremely low species-wide genetic diversity. The …

Host–symbiont interactions may form obligatory or facultative associations that are context
dependent. Long-term studies on microbiome composition from wild populations should …

Temperature is one of the most important environmental parameters with crucial impacts on
nearly all biological processes. Due to anthropogenic activity, average air temperatures are …

Group living carries a price: it inherently entails increased competition for resources and
reproduction, and may also be associated with mating among relatives, which carries costs …