Venoms have evolved on numerous occasions throughout the animal kingdom. These
'biochemical weapon systems' typically function to facilitate, or protect the producing animal …

The ectoparasitic mite Varroa destructor is the most significant pathological threat to the
western honey bee, Apis mellifera, leading to the death of most colonies if left untreated. An …

Summary The stinging wasps (Hymenoptera: Aculeata) are an extremely diverse lineage of
hymenopteran insects, encompassing over 70,000 described species and a diversity of life …

Insects are the most speciose group of animals, but the phylogenetic relationships of many
major lineages remain unresolved. We inferred the phylogeny of insects from 1478 protein …

Background The use of transcriptomic and genomic datasets for phylogenetic reconstruction
has become increasingly common as researchers attempt to resolve recalcitrant nodes with …

Around 150 million years ago, eusocial termites evolved from within the cockroaches, 50
million years before eusocial Hymenoptera, such as bees and ants, appeared. Here, we …

We describe the draft genome of the microcrustacean Daphnia pulex, which is only 200
megabases and contains at least 30,907 genes. The high gene count is a consequence of …

Cytosine DNA methylation is a heritable epigenetic mark present in many eukaryotic
organisms. Although DNA methylation likely has a conserved role in gene silencing, the …

Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) are well recognized beneficial host-associated members of the
microbiota of humans and animals. Yet LAB-associations of invertebrates have been poorly …

Abstract Background The brown planthopper, Nilaparvata lugens, the most destructive pest
of rice, is a typical monophagous herbivore that feeds exclusively on rice sap, which …