Polyandry in two South American harvester ants

Polyandry in two South American harvester ants

Although monandry (single mating) is the ancestral state in social hymenopteran insects, effective mating frequencies greater than 2 have been confirmed for a fair amount of ant species: Cataglyphis cursor, the leaf-cutters of the genera Atta and Acromyrmex, army ants of the genera Eciton, Dorylus,...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Insectes sociaux Vol. 55; no. 1; pp. 91 - 97
Main Authors: Pol, R. G, de Casenave, J. Lopez, Feldhaar, H, Milesi, F. A, Gadau, J
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Basel Basel : SP Birkhäuser Verlag Basel 01-02-2008
SP Birkhäuser Verlag Basel
Springer
Subjects:
Acromyrmex
Animal ethology
Atta
Biological and medical sciences
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Cataglyphis cursor
Dorylus
Entomology
Formicidae
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Life Sciences
mating frequency
microsatellite repeats
Monte desert
Pogonomyrmex
Pogonomyrmex inermis
Pogonomyrmex pronotalis
polyandry
Protozoa. Invertebrata
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Research Article
South America
Argentina
America
microsatellites
mating frequency
Monte desert
polyandry
Ants
Formicidae
Insecta
Sexual behavior
Multiple mating
Social insect
Formicoidea
Arthropoda
Microsatellite DNA
Pogonomyrmex inermis
Polyandry
Hymenoptera
Invertebrata
Pogonomyrmex pronotalis
Aculeata
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Although monandry (single mating) is the ancestral state in social hymenopteran insects, effective mating frequencies greater than 2 have been confirmed for a fair amount of ant species: Cataglyphis cursor, the leaf-cutters of the genera Atta and Acromyrmex, army ants of the genera Eciton, Dorylus, Aenictus and Neivamyrmex, and some North American seed harvester species of the genus Pogonomyrmex. This last genus spreads throughout open arid habitats from Patagonia to southwestern Canada. Whereas some North American Pogonomyrmex species are thoroughly studied, we know much less about these ants in South America. The objective of this study was to estimate the effective mating frequency of Pogonomyrmex inermis and P. pronotalis, two Pogonomyrmex sensu stricto species from the central Monte desert of Argentina. A total of 477 P. pronotalis workers from 24 colonies and 402 P. inermis workers from 20 colonies were analyzed using six and four highly polymorphic microsatellites, respectively. The multilocus analysis revealed that all colonies were monogynous and all queens multiply-mated. The effective mating frequency was 8.75 and 6.52 for queens of P. pronotalis and P. inermis, respectively; those values increased up to 15.66 and 9.78, respectively, when corrected for sampling errors. This is the first demonstration that queens in at least some members of the South American Pogonomyrmex sensu stricto are strictly polyandrous, with mating numbers per queen at least as high as those previously found for North American species. We suggest that multiple mating probably arose early in the evolution of the genus Pogonomyrmex and may be the basis of its ecological success and wide distribution.
Bibliography:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00040-007-0975-0
ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
content type line 23
ISSN:0020-1812
1420-9098
DOI:10.1007/s00040-007-0975-0