Background Arthropods comprise the largest and most diverse phylum on Earth and play vital roles in nearly every ecosystem. Their diversity stems in part from variations on a conserved body plan, resulting from and recorded in adaptive changes in the genome. Dissection of the genomic record of sequence change enables broad questions regarding genome evolution to be addressed, even across hyper-diverse taxa within arthropods. Results Using 76 whole genome sequences representing 21 orders spanning more than 500 million years of arthropod evolution, we document changes in gene and protein domain content and provide temporal and phylogenetic context for interpreting these innovations. We identify many novel gene families that arose early in the evolution of arthropods and during the diversification of insects into modern orders. We reveal unexpected variation in patterns of DNA methylation across arthropods and examples of gene family and protein domain evolution coincident with the appearance of notable phenotypic and physiological adaptations such as flight, metamorphosis, sociality, and chemoperception. Conclusions These analyses demonstrate how large-scale comparative genomics can provide broad new insights into the genotype to phenotype map and generate testable hypotheses about the evolution of animal diversity.

中文翻译：

---

节肢动物的基因内容进化

背景节肢动物是地球上最大和最多样化的门，几乎在每个生态系统中都发挥着重要作用。它们的多样性部分源于保守的身体计划的变化，这些变化由基因组的适应性变化引起并记录在案。对序列变化的基因组记录的剖析可以解决有关基因组进化的广泛问题，即使是在节肢动物内的高度多样化的分类群中也是如此。结果 使用代表节肢动物进化超过 5 亿年的 21 个命令的 76 个全基因组序列，我们记录了基因和蛋白质域内容的变化，并提供了解释这些创新的时间和系统发育背景。我们确定了许多在节肢动物进化早期和昆虫向现代目分化过程中出现的新基因家族。我们揭示了节肢动物 DNA 甲基化模式的意想不到的变化，以及基因家族和蛋白质域进化的例子，这些例子与显着的表型和生理适应性（如飞行、变态、社会性和化学感知）的出现相吻合。结论 这些分析证明了大规模比较基因组学如何能够为基因型到表型图提供广泛的新见解，并生成关于动物多样性进化的可检验假设。