Stay or drift? Queen acceptance in the ant Formica paralugubris

Holzer, Barbara; Meunier, Joël; Keller, Laurent; Chapuisat, Michel

doi:10.1007/s00040-008-1017-2

Cited by 12 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…This difference shows the importance of performing a long-term survey on a large number of social groups to have enough power to detect rare events (Ross 2001). A high turnover of queens and occasional acceptance of unrelated queens was expected in polygynous colonies, as it has been documented in many other polygynous species (e.g., Crozier and Pamilo 1996;Evans 1996;Chapuisat and Keller 1999;Pedersen and Boomsma 1999;Heinze and Keller 2000;Holzer et al 2008). The finding of colony inheritance by related queens or colony takeover by unrelated queens in monogynous colonies is more surprising, as monogynous colonies of ants have generally been found to be highly stable (e.g., Pamilo 1991b; Crozier and Pamilo 1996).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Bidirectional Shifts in Colony Queen Number in a Socially Polymorphic Ant Population

Purcell

Chapuisat

2012

Evolution

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The breeding system of social organisms affects many important aspects of social life. Some species vary greatly in the number of breeders per group, but the mechanisms and selective pressures contributing to the maintenance of this polymorphism in social structure remain poorly understood. Here, we take advantage of a genetic dataset that spans 15 years to investigate the dynamics of colony queen number within a socially polymorphic ant species. Our study population of Formica selysi has singleand multiple-queen colonies. We found that the social structure of this species is somewhat flexible: on average, each year 3.2% of the single-queen colonies became polygynous, and conversely 1.4% of the multiple-queen colonies became monogynous. The annualized queen replacement rates were 10.3% and 11.9% for single-and multiple-queen colonies, respectively. New queens were often but not always related to previous colony members. At the population level, the social polymorphism appeared stable.There was no genetic differentiation between single-and multiple-queen colonies at eight microsatellite loci, suggesting ongoing gene flow between social forms. Overall, the regular and bidirectional changes in queen number indicate that social structure is a labile trait in F. selysi, with neither form being favored within a time-frame of 15 years. K E Y W O R D S : Formicinae, hymenoptera, monogyny, parentage analysis, phenotypic plasticity, polygyny, social evolution.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Bidirectional Shifts in Colony Queen Number in a Socially Polymorphic Ant Population

Purcell

Chapuisat

2012

Evolution

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“…The social organisation within the genus Formica is highly flexible with both inter- and intra-specific variation in queen number [15], [16]. The differences in social organisation are also often reflected in the degree of aggression exhibited towards intruders; single-queen colonies are regularly highly aggressive, whereas multi-queen colonies are often, but not always, more permissive towards intruders [17]–[19]. As a consequence, Formica ants are a model in studies of social organisation (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transcriptome Characterisation of the Ant Formica exsecta with New Insights into the Evolution of Desaturase Genes in Social Hymenoptera

et al. 2013

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BackgroundDespite the recent sequencing of seven ant genomes, no genomic data are available for the genus Formica, an important group for the study of eusocial traits. We sequenced the transcriptome of the ant Formica exsecta with the 454 FLX Titanium technology from a pooled sample of workers from 70 Finnish colonies.ResultsAbout 1,000,000 reads were obtained from a normalised cDNA library. We compared the assemblers MIRA3.0 and Newbler2.6 and showed that the latter performed better on this dataset due to a new option which is dedicated to improve contig formation in low depth portions of the assemblies. The 29,579 contigs represent 27 Mb. 50% showed similarity with known proteins and 25% could be assigned a category of gene ontology. We found more than 13,000 high-quality single nucleotide polymorphisms. The Δ9 desaturase gene family is an important multigene family involved in chemical communication in insects. We found six Δ9 desaturases in this Formica exsecta transcriptome dataset that were used to reconstruct a maximum-likelihood phylogeny of insect desaturases and to test for signatures of positive selection in this multigene family in ant lineages. We found differences with previous phylogenies of this gene family in ants, and found two clades potentially under positive selection.ConclusionThis first transcriptome reference sequence of Formica exsecta provided sequence and polymorphism data that will allow researchers working on Formica ants to develop studies to tackle the genetic basis of eusocial phenotypes. In addition, this study provided some general guidelines for de novo transcriptome assembly that should be useful for future transcriptome sequencing projects. Finally, we found potential signatures of positive selection in some clades of the Δ9 desaturase gene family in ants, which suggest the potential role of sequence divergence and adaptive evolution in shaping the large diversity of chemical cues in social insects.

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“…In ants, factors such as colony condition (i.e., whether male or female producing) (Brown et al, 2003), the mating status of the queens (Fortelius et al, 1993;Sundström, 1997;Holzer et al, 2008) and primer pheromones (Vargo and Fletcher, 1986;Vargo and Passera, 1991;Keller and Nonacs, 1993;Vander Meer and Alonso, 2002) can determine the outcome of queen introductions into foreign colonies. Laboratory colonies of Coptotermes gestroi (Wasmann) accepted foreign queens readily (Guaraldo and Costa-Leonardo, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does lack of intraspecific aggression or absence of nymphs determine acceptance of foreign reproductives in Macrotermes?

et al. 2011

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The rejection or acceptance of a foreign reproductive by an alien colony may not always be as straightforward as cue recognition between worker termites. This paper aims to determine whether adoption of foreign reproductives is caused simply by lack of intraspecific aggressionor is contingent on the reproductive status of the host colony. In the fungus-culturing termites, Macrotermes gilvus (Hagen) and Macrotermes carbonarius (Hagen), major workers showed low intraspecific aggression towards nonnestmates irrespective of geographic distance between source colonies. Our results indicated that workers were hardly aggressive towards non-nestmates. In royal cell-swapping experiments, both species responded in a similar way: (1) in host colonies with nymphs present, the foreign reproductives were rejected; while (2) in host colonies without nymphs the foreign reproductives were either accepted and breeding resumed or the host colonies died eventually. Workers from the host colonies preferentially maintained offspring nymphs from which adultoid replacement reproductives develop rather than accepting foreign reproductives. There is no fitness gain for the queenless workers in accepting foreign reproductives; however, there is overall benefit to the newly born population.

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Stay or drift? Queen acceptance in the ant Formica paralugubris

Cited by 12 publications

References 23 publications

Bidirectional Shifts in Colony Queen Number in a Socially Polymorphic Ant Population

Bidirectional Shifts in Colony Queen Number in a Socially Polymorphic Ant Population

Transcriptome Characterisation of the Ant Formica exsecta with New Insights into the Evolution of Desaturase Genes in Social Hymenoptera

Does lack of intraspecific aggression or absence of nymphs determine acceptance of foreign reproductives in Macrotermes?

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