Sociality in weevils is shaped by sheltering and convergent gene losses
- 1Coventry University
Abstract
Eusociality, characterized by overlapping generations, cooperative brood care, and reproductive division of labour, has arisen independently across diverse, phylogenetically distant insect orders, including Hymenoptera (ants, bees, and wasps), Blattodea (termites), and Coleoptera (weevils). While multiple studies have investigated the molecular evolution of sociality from solitary ancestors in Hymenoptera and Blattodea, so far little is known about the evolutionary signatures of social evolution in Coleoptera. Weevils (Curculionidae) provide an ideal system for addressing this question, as they cover the full spectrum of social complexity from parental care, through several origins of facultative eusociality to the only obligately eusocial beetle, Austroplatypus incompertus. We generated genome assemblies for A. incompertus and two facultatively eusocial weevil species, Xylosandrus germanus and Xyleborinus saxesenii, which together with 18 publicly available weevil genomes span two independent evolutionary origins of sociality. Our analyses reveal a genome-wide relaxation of purifying selection with increasing social complexity, which is most pronounced in A. incompertus. We find a significant excess of convergent gene family contractions in lineages where sociality evolved, and no evidence of elevated positive selection. These findings indicate that the molecular mechanisms of social evolution in weevils are primarily characterised by relaxed selection and gene loss, rather than adaptive innovation and gene family expansions. These observations are consistent with sheltering and reduced effective population size playing an important role, a pattern not previously observed in other clades.
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BibTeX
@misc{rinke2026sociality,
title = {{Sociality in weevils is shaped by sheltering and convergent gene losses}},
author = {S. Rinke and J. Bickerstaff and P. H. W. Biedermann and C. Kemena-Rinke and M. Riegler and M. Schebeck and M. C. Harrison},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.64898/2026.09.19.752859},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.19.752859v1},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Sociality in weevils is shaped by sheltering and convergent gene losses
AU - S. Rinke
AU - J. Bickerstaff
AU - P. H. W. Biedermann
AU - C. Kemena-Rinke
AU - M. Riegler
AU - M. Schebeck
AU - M. C. Harrison
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/19
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.09.19.752859
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.19.752859v1
AB - Eusociality, characterized by overlapping generations, cooperative brood care, and reproductive division of labour, has arisen independently across diverse, phylogenetically distant insect orders, including Hymenoptera (ants, bees, and wasps), Blattodea (termites), and Coleoptera (weevils). While multiple studies have investigated the molecular evolution of sociality from solitary ancestors in Hymenoptera and Blattodea, so far little is known about the evolutionary signatures of social evolution in Coleoptera. Weevils (Curculionidae) provide an ideal system for addressing this question, as they cover the full spectrum of social complexity from parental care, through several origins of facultative eusociality to the only obligately eusocial beetle, Austroplatypus incompertus. We generated genome assemblies for A. incompertus and two facultatively eusocial weevil species, Xylosandrus germanus and Xyleborinus saxesenii, which together with 18 publicly available weevil genomes span two independent evolutionary origins of sociality. Our analyses reveal a genome-wide relaxation of purifying selection with increasing social complexity, which is most pronounced in A. incompertus. We find a significant excess of convergent gene family contractions in lineages where sociality evolved, and no evidence of elevated positive selection. These findings indicate that the molecular mechanisms of social evolution in weevils are primarily characterised by relaxed selection and gene loss, rather than adaptive innovation and gene family expansions. These observations are consistent with sheltering and reduced effective population size playing an important role, a pattern not previously observed in other clades.
ER -