Social insects, which usually have specialized behavioral groups (also called castes), are important models for social evolution and behavior researches. How division of labor in insect societies is regulated is an outstanding question and not fully understood yet. However, in many social insect species, experimental control over important factors that regulate division of labor, such as genotype and age, is limited. In a study published online on February 6th in Current Biology, researchers from Rockefeller University and BGI-Shenzhen have sequenced the genome of the queenless clonal raider ant Cerapachys biroi, a new model system to study the molecular mechanisms of social behaviors.
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