Genes Conserved in a Variety of Animals, Including Insects, Molluscs and Mammals, are Involved in the Adaptive Radiation of Carabid Beetles

A research group led by Associate Professor Junji Konuma from Toho University and Professor Teiji Sota from Kyoto University has discovered that the same gene involved in human head formation also determines the head shape of the snail-feeding carabid beetle, Carabus blaptoides. Carabus blaptoides has a variation in this gene that results in a slender or stout head, allowing them to feed on land snails with different strategies. While this gene is highly conserved across many animals, it may play a crucial role in the diversity of beetle morphology. The results of this research were published in the June 2024 issue of the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.

The genetic background of the morphological divergence of snail-feeding beetles. Slender beetles (left) can eat large snails by inserting its head into a shell but cannot eat snails with shell apertures smaller than their heads. Stout beetles (right) can eat small snails by crushing the shell through powerful jaw biting but cannot eat large snails with hard shells. Shell entry and crushing are alternative behaviors for subsisting on snails, and this functional trade-off causes diversification in snail-feeding carabid beetles. We found that odd-paired is involved in this morphological divergence of snail-feeding beetles.

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