Genome of the green-head ant, Rhytidoponera metallica, reveals mechanisms of toxin evolution in a genetically hyper-diverse eusocial species

Taken together, our results point to classical gene duplication and diversification as the main evolutionary mechanism by which the main toxin family in ant venoms evolves, suggest toxin-gene functional diversification under frequency-dependent selection maintains colony-level venom hypervariability in R. metallica, and provide new insight into the role of multi-level selection in eusocial animals.

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Publication Details

Journal
Genome biology
Published
2025-09-26
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s13059-025-03777-2
Citations
1
Primary Topic
Insect and Arachnid Ecology and Behavior
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
1.82
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article

Genome of the green-head ant, Rhytidoponera metallica, reveals mechanisms of toxin evolution in a genetically hyper-diverse eusocial species

Eivind A. B. Undheim, Thomas Fritz Hansen, Jia Hao Beh, Samuel D. Robinson et al.
1 citations
Genome biology
Insect and Arachnid Ecology and Behavior
1.82
article

Genome of the green-head ant, Rhytidoponera metallica, reveals mechanisms of toxin evolution in a genetically hyper-diverse eusocial species

Eivind A. B. Undheim, Thomas Fritz Hansen, Jia Hao Beh, Samuel D. Robinson, Pedro G. Nachtigall, Anders Isaksen, Robin A. Araya
article en
1 citations

Abstract

Taken together, our results point to classical gene duplication and diversification as the main evolutionary mechanism by which the main toxin family in ant venoms evolves, suggest toxin-gene functional diversification under frequency-dependent selection maintains colony-level venom hypervariability in R. metallica, and provide new insight into the role of multi-level selection in eusocial animals.

Genome biologyVol. 26(1)
The University of Queensland (AU), University of Oslo (NO)
Openalex Percentile: Top 12%
Insect and Arachnid Ecology and Behavior
1.82
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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Genome of the green-head ant, Rhytidoponera metallica, reveals mechanisms of toxin evolution in a genetically hyper-diverse eusocial species — Eivind A. B. Undheim, Thomas Fritz Hansen, et al. · Genome biology (2025) | TGRS Research Map | TGRS