Studies of genes and social behavior, aided by new genomic resources, are coming of age. Here, I highlight three of the insights that have emerged from these studies that shed light on the evolution and mechanisms governing social life: 1) Nature builds diverse social brains from common genetic blocks in insects and vertebrates, including those related to metabolism and transcriptional regulation; 2) Changes in the wiring of gene regulatory networks are involved in the evolution of insect societies; and 3) The social brain is addicted to altruism.
Lecturer
2018—Gene Robinson
Swanlund Chair; Director of the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign