Interestingly, of the seven GO terms reported in this study, five terms (chitin metabolic process, chitin binding, serine-type endopeptidase activity, proteolysis and odorant binding) were enriched along the ‘fly’ branch (represented by the Drosophila melanogaster genome (Adams et al., 2000)) of the branch-site selection tests conducted by Roux et al. (2014), indicating they may represent a genetic ‘core’ remaining under selection and responsible for adaptive evolution within the Diptera.

FYI, these GO terms were found enriched using the results of positive selection tests on all branches delineated by the 12 Drosophila species (very similarly to what we have done with the ant lineage), and not on a single D. melanogaster branch.