Tracking a major evolutionary transition to superorganismality
Bitao Qiu, Shuangrong Li, Zewen Zhou, Joh R. Henschel, Robert Hanus, Bao Jia, Qionghua Gao, Judith Korb
This study reconstructs the evolutionary history of termite social systems using comparative transcriptomics, revealing that linear caste development is ancestral and bifurcated caste development evolved multiple times through gene regulatory network co-option.
bioRxiv · Aug 26, 2026 · PreprintEvolutionary Biology