Editorial: Genetic Effects on Social Traits: Empirical Studies from Social Animals

As genomic information becomes available for a growing number of social animals, so do opportunities to examine the genetic basis of social behavior. Nowhere is this more evident than in the field of social insect research that is actively bridging the once-separate sub-fields of socioand molecular-biology (Linksvayer et al., 2012; Libbrecht et al., 2013; Kapheim et al., 2015; Rehan and Toth, 2015). In this Research Topic, we capture recent progress at this intersection of insect-based sociobiology and gene-level analyses. Fourteen contributing authors highlight how comparative, population, and epi-genetics approaches can be deployed to help resolve questions about the molecular evolution and gene-regulatory expression of social traits.