11-27-2014, 06:18 AM
Interesting, research into LFA find that males are clones of males and the queens are all clones of the queen, and only the sterile female worker ants have shared genetic material. Some of the information go so far as describing the males and queens as different species, though I think that is far fetched. (In that case, I guess the worker ants would all be considered hybrids).
Fournier proposes that because W. auropunctata males get shut out of parenting a queen, a countermeasure has evolved. During research on the species in New Caledonia, the team found that within a particular nest, genes of all males, including larval ones, matched each other and the genes in the sperm in the queens' storage organs. The males' genes, however, differed from the queens' genes at 10 of the 11 comparison points. Therefore, male genes in some eggs probably got rid of the queens' genes, says Fournier.
"Males thwart the queens by eliminating the female genome in [some] fertilized eggs," he suggests. "We could think of the males as a separate, parasitic species that uses host eggs for its own reproduction."
Genome elimination has turned up before—in some fish, amphibians, and insects—but in those cases, the females' genes wipe out the males'.
Behavioral ecologist Andrew Bourke of the Zoological Society of London describes the idea of a male ant essentially cloning itself as "plausible." If more studies confirm that the males' genes eliminate the females', the little fire ants provide "a very interesting example of sexual conflict," he says.
Yet it's not total war in the fire ant nest, points out another analyst of social insects. Both the males and queens need the sterile workers and apparently benefit from those workers' genetic diversity, which comes from sex, notes Ross Crozier of James Cook University in Townsville, Australia.
http://www.phschool.com/science/science_...lones.html
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v43...03705.html
http://www.littlefireants.com/Foucaud%20...202007.pdf
Fournier proposes that because W. auropunctata males get shut out of parenting a queen, a countermeasure has evolved. During research on the species in New Caledonia, the team found that within a particular nest, genes of all males, including larval ones, matched each other and the genes in the sperm in the queens' storage organs. The males' genes, however, differed from the queens' genes at 10 of the 11 comparison points. Therefore, male genes in some eggs probably got rid of the queens' genes, says Fournier.
"Males thwart the queens by eliminating the female genome in [some] fertilized eggs," he suggests. "We could think of the males as a separate, parasitic species that uses host eggs for its own reproduction."
Genome elimination has turned up before—in some fish, amphibians, and insects—but in those cases, the females' genes wipe out the males'.
Behavioral ecologist Andrew Bourke of the Zoological Society of London describes the idea of a male ant essentially cloning itself as "plausible." If more studies confirm that the males' genes eliminate the females', the little fire ants provide "a very interesting example of sexual conflict," he says.
Yet it's not total war in the fire ant nest, points out another analyst of social insects. Both the males and queens need the sterile workers and apparently benefit from those workers' genetic diversity, which comes from sex, notes Ross Crozier of James Cook University in Townsville, Australia.
http://www.phschool.com/science/science_...lones.html
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v43...03705.html
http://www.littlefireants.com/Foucaud%20...202007.pdf