Overview
In ants as in bees, a diploid female is either a reproductive or worker. In honeybees, female larvae fed a high protein substance known as ‘royal jelly’ become reproductives, while those not fed the necessary nutrients become workers (Linksvayer et al. 2011). Feeding experiments in ants suggested that like honeybees, the fate of a diploid female egg is usually determined as a larva by food supply (Brian 1951). It was thus unexpected to discover about 15 years ago (Volny & Gordon 2002; Cahan & Keller 2003), using microsatellite markers, that in some populations in the harvester ant genus Pogonomyrmex, there is an association between genotype and reproductive status. There are two interdependent lineages. Matings between a reproductive and a male of the same lineage produce daughter reproductives, while matings between a female reproductive and a male of the other lineage produce daughter workers (Fig. 1). The haploid males are produced from unfertilized eggs. The two lineages need each other because a colony cannot produce offspring colonies without reproductives, and it cannot raise and maintain reproductives without workers. In this issue of Molecular Ecology, Romiguier et al. use RNA sequencing to demonstrate a similar system in Messor, another harvester ant genus.
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Findings and contributions
- The authors argue that workers in dependent-lineage systems are not hybrids in the usual sense, because both lineages contribute to colonies of a single species that cannot persist without both.
- Because a queen must mate with at least one male of each lineage, the authors note (with Romiguier et al.) that such species likely have large, population-wide mating aggregations.
- Citing their prior long-term study finding no ecological differences between lineages, the authors suggest the system may be maintained by lineage differences in male production rather than ecological forces.
- The authors expect two-lineage systems to be found more widely across ant genera and subfamilies, and say Romiguier et al.'s high-throughput sequencing methods will aid that search.
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