{"paper_id":"068fdb1b-b22b-43b8-9485-851a8d7afabd","body_text":"This is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. This is version 1 of this Preprint.\nYou must log in to post a comment.\nThere are no comments or no comments have been made public for this article.\nThis is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. This is version 1 of this Preprint.\nAdd a Comment\nYou must log in to post a comment.\nComments\nThere are no comments or no comments have been made public for this article.\nThe acorn ant, Temnothorax curvispinosus, is a model system for rapid evolution of physiological traits to urban environments. Here, we performed a transcriptome-wide comparison of changes in gene expression between urban and rural populations of acorn ants in the southeastern United States. Our analyses revealed 287 differentially expressed genes. Overrepresentation in gene ontology terms was consistent with evolved differences in whole-organism traits such as metabolism and running speed. Transcriptome-wide comparisons also implicated an important role for cuticle development, which could directly aid in maintaining water balance in urban environments, with potential indirect effects on heat tolerance.\nhttps://doi.org/10.32942/X2PW96\nLife Sciences\nPublished: 2026-03-08 00:33\nLast Updated: 2026-03-08 00:33\nCC BY Attribution 4.0 International\nData and Code Availability Statement:\nhttps://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/2R5SH\nLanguage:\nEnglish","source_license":"CC-BY-4.0","license_restricted":false}