LAUSR

The rise of ants over the past ~100 million years reshaped the biosphere, presenting ecological challenges for many organisms, but also opportunities. No insect group has been so adept at exploiting niches inside ant colonies as the rove beetles (Staphylinidae)-an ancient clade of >64,000 predominantly free-living predators from which numerous socially parasitic "myrmecophile" lineages have emerged. Myrmecophilous staphylinids are specialized for colony life through changes in behavior, chemistry, anatomy and life history that are often strikingly convergent, and hence potentially adaptive for this symbiotic way of life. Here we examine how the interplay between ecological pressures and molecular, cellular and neurobiological mechanisms shape the evolutionary trajectories of symbiotic lineages in this ancient, convergent system.