1
|
Dahan RA, Grove NK, Bollazzi M, Gerstner BP, Rabeling C. Decoupled evolution of mating biology and social structure in Acromyrmex leaf-cutting ants. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 2021. [DOI: 10.1007/s00265-021-03113-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
Abstract
Abstract
Insect societies vary greatly in their social structure, mating biology, and life history. Polygyny, the presence of multiple reproductive queens in a single colony, and polyandry, multiple mating by females, both increase the genetic variability in colonies of eusocial organisms, resulting in potential reproductive conflicts. The co-occurrence of polygyny and polyandry in a single species is rarely observed across eusocial insects, and these traits have been found to be negatively correlated in ants. Acromyrmex leaf-cutting ants are well-suited for investigating the evolution of complex mating strategies because both polygyny and polyandry co-occur in this genus. We used microsatellite markers and parentage inference in five South American Acromyrmex species to study how different selective pressures influence the evolution of polygyny and polyandry. We show that Acromyrmex species exhibit independent variation in mating biology and social structure, and polygyny and polyandry are not necessarily negatively correlated within genera. One species, Acromyrmex lobicornis, displays a significantly lower mating frequency compared to others, while another species, A. lundii, appears to have reverted to obligate monogyny. These variations appear to have a small impact on average intra-colonial relatedness, although the biological significance of such a small effect size is unclear. All species show significant reproductive skew between patrilines, but there was no significant difference in reproductive skew between any of the sampled species. We find that the evolution of social structure and mating biology appear to follow independent evolutionary trajectories in different species. Finally, we discuss the evolutionary implications that mating biology and social structure have on life history evolution in Acromyrmex leaf-cutting ants.
Significance statement
Many species of eusocial insects have colonies with multiple queens (polygyny), or queens mating with multiple males (polyandry). Both behaviors generate potentially beneficial genetic diversity in ant colonies as well as reproductive conflict. The co-occurrence of both polygyny and polyandry in a single species is only known from few ant species. Leaf-cutting ants have both multi-queen colonies and multiply mated queens, providing a well-suited system for studying the co-evolutionary dynamics between mating behavior and genetic diversity in colonies of eusocial insects. We used microsatellite markers to infer the socio-reproductive behavior in five South American leaf-cutter ant species. We found that variation in genetic diversity in colonies was directly associated with the mating frequencies of queens, but not with the number of queens in a colony. We suggest that multi-queen nesting and mating frequency evolve independently of one another, indicating that behavioral and ecological factors other than genetic diversity contribute to the evolution of complex mating behaviors in leaf-cutting ants.
Collapse
|
2
|
Delaplane KS, Given JK, Menz J, Delaney DA. Colony fitness increases in the honey bee at queen mating frequencies higher than genetic diversity asymptote. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 2021. [DOI: 10.1007/s00265-021-03065-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Abstract
Across the eusocial Hymenoptera, a queen’s mating frequency is positively associated with her workers’ genetic diversity and colony’s fitness. Over 90% of a colony’s diversity potential is achieved by its mother’s tenth effective mating (me); however, many females mate at levels of me > 10, a zone we here call hyperpolyandry. We compared honey bee colony fitness at mating levels near and above this genetic diversity asymptote. We were interested in how hyperpolyandry affects colony phenotypes arising from both common tasks (brood care) and rare specialized tasks (parasite resistance). We used an unselected wild line of bees and a Varroa Sensitive Hygiene (VSH) line selected to resist the parasite Varroa destructor. Virgin queens were instrumentally inseminated to replicate the following queen/colony conditions: (1) VSH semen/low polyandry (observed mating number = mo = 9), (2) VSH semen/high polyandry (mo = 54), (3) wild type semen/low polyandry, or (4) wild semen/high polyandry. There was a positive effect of polyandry on brood survival, an outcome of common tasks, with highest values at mo = 54. There was an interaction between polyandry and genetics such that differences between genetic lines expressed only at mo = 54, with fewer mites in VSH colonies. These results are consistent with two hypotheses for the evolution of mating levels in excess of the genetic diversity asymptote: hyperpolyandry improves colony fitness by (1) optimizing genotype compositions for common tasks and (2) by capturing rare specialist allele combinations, resisting cliff-edge ecological catastrophes.
Significance statement
Polyandry is a female’s practice of mating with several males, storing their sperm, and using it to produce one or more clutches of genetically diverse offspring. In the social Hymenoptera, polyandry increases the genetic diversity and task efficiency of workers, leading to improved colony fitness. Over 90% of the increase in a colony’s diversity potential is achieved by its mother’s tenth mating; however, many females practice hyperpolyandry, a term we reserve here for mating levels above this genetic diversity asymptote. We show that a token of colony fitness arising from common tasks, brood survival, improves universally as one moves from sub- to hyperpolyandrous mating levels. However, a colony phenotype arising from a rare parasite resistance task is only expressed in the presence of the controlling alleles and under conditions of hyperpolyandry. These results suggest adaptive mechanisms by which hyperpolyandry could evolve.
Collapse
|
3
|
Oldroyd BP, Yagound B. Parent-of-origin effects, allele-specific expression, genomic imprinting and paternal manipulation in social insects. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2021; 376:20200425. [PMID: 33866807 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2020.0425] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Haplo-diploidy and the relatedness asymmetries it generates mean that social insects are prime candidates for the evolution of genomic imprinting. In single-mating social insect species, some genes may be selected to evolve genomic mechanisms that enhance reproduction by workers when they are inherited from a female. This situation reverses in multiple mating species, where genes inherited from fathers can be under selection to enhance the reproductive success of daughters. Reciprocal crosses between subspecies of honeybees have shown strong parent-of-origin effects on worker reproductive phenotypes, and this could be evidence of such genomic imprinting affecting genes related to worker reproduction. It is also possible that social insect fathers directly affect gene expression in their daughters, for example, by placing small interfering RNA molecules in semen. Gene expression studies have repeatedly found evidence of parent-specific gene expression in social insects, but it is unclear at this time whether this arises from genomic imprinting, paternal manipulation, an artefact of cyto-nuclear interactions, or all of these. This article is part of the theme issue 'How does epigenetics influence the course of evolution?'
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Benjamin P Oldroyd
- Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, Wallotstrasse 19, 14193 Berlin, Germany.,BEE Lab, School of Life and Environmental Sciences A12, University of Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia
| | - Boris Yagound
- BEE Lab, School of Life and Environmental Sciences A12, University of Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia
| |
Collapse
|
4
|
Azevedo-Silva M, Mori GM, Carvalho CS, Côrtes MC, Souza AP, Oliveira PS. Breeding systems and genetic diversity in tropical carpenter ant colonies: different strategies for similar outcomes in Brazilian Cerrado savanna. Zool J Linn Soc 2020. [DOI: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlaa035] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022]
Abstract
AbstractEusocial insects tend to present low genetic diversity (GD) within colonies, which can increase with the co-occurrence of multiple queens (polygyny) or with multiple mating by a single queen (polyandry). Therefore, it is important to elucidate how these strategies influence GD, which in turn mediate population ecology and how organisms respond to their environment. We studied two carpenter ant species from the Brazilian savanna, Camponotus renggeri and C. rufipes. Using microsatellites, we evaluated the number of breeders, the genetic relatedness and the contribution of polygyny and polyandry to GD within colonies. Both species exhibited facultative polygyny. In C. renggeri, low related queens formed colonies jointly and present low mating frequency. In this species, colony GD increased with the number of queens. Contrastingly, closely related queens of C. rufipes formed polygynous colonies, exhibiting high mating frequency. In C. rufipes, both queens and males contributed to colony GD. Despite the differences, the two species have similar GD at the colony scale. Under low mating frequency, our data support that polygyny has evolutionary importance for increasing GD in ant colonies, a mechanism mainly conferred to polyandry. Although the impact of GD in variable ecological and adaptive contexts remains uncertain, this study highlights how distinct reproductive strategies may generate similar patterns of GD in ants.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Marianne Azevedo-Silva
- Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas SP, Brazil
| | - Gustavo M Mori
- Instituto de Biociências, Universidade Estadual Paulista, São Vicente SP, Brazil
| | | | - Marina C Côrtes
- Departamento de Biodiversidade, Universidade Estadual Paulista, Rio Claro SP, Brazil
| | - Anete P Souza
- Departamento de Biologia Vegetal, Centro de Biologia Molecular e Engenharia Genética, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas SP, Brazil
| | - Paulo S Oliveira
- Departamento de Biologia Animal, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas SP, Brazil
| |
Collapse
|
5
|
Masoni A, Frizzi F, Natali C, Ciofi C, Santini G. Mating frequency and colony genetic structure analyses reveal unexpected polygyny in the Mediterranean acrobat ant Crematogaster scutellaris. ETHOL ECOL EVOL 2020. [DOI: 10.1080/03949370.2019.1680449] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/25/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Alberto Masoni
- Department of Biology, University of Florence, Sesto Fiorentino (Firenze), Italy
| | - Filippo Frizzi
- Department of Biology, University of Florence, Sesto Fiorentino (Firenze), Italy
| | - Chiara Natali
- Department of Biology, University of Florence, Sesto Fiorentino (Firenze), Italy
| | - Claudio Ciofi
- Department of Biology, University of Florence, Sesto Fiorentino (Firenze), Italy
| | - Giacomo Santini
- Department of Biology, University of Florence, Sesto Fiorentino (Firenze), Italy
| |
Collapse
|
6
|
Ding G, Xu H, Oldroyd BP, Gloag RS. Extreme polyandry aids the establishment of invasive populations of a social insect. Heredity (Edinb) 2017; 119:381-387. [PMID: 28832579 DOI: 10.1038/hdy.2017.49] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/27/2017] [Revised: 06/27/2017] [Accepted: 07/12/2017] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
Although monandry is believed to have facilitated the evolution of eusociality, many highly eusocial insects have since evolved extreme polyandry. The transition to extreme polyandry was likely driven by the benefits of within-colony genetic variance to task specialization and/or disease resistance, but the extent to which it confers secondary benefits, once evolved, is unclear. Here we investigate the consequences of extreme polyandry on the invasive potential of the Asian honey bee, Apis cerana. In honey bees and other Hymenoptera, small newly founded invasive populations must overcome the genetic constraint of their sex determination system that requires heterozygosity at a sex-determining locus to produce viable females. We find A. cerana queens in an invasive population mate with an average of 27 males (range 16-42) that would result in the founding queen/s carrying 75% of their source population's sex alleles in stored sperm. This mating frequency is similar to native-range Chinese A. cerana (mean 29 males, range 19-46). Simulations reveal that extreme polyandry reduces the risk, relative to monandry or moderate polyandry, that colonies produce a high incidence of inviable brood in populations that have experienced a founder event, that is, when sex allele diversity is low and/or allele frequencies are unequal. Thus, extreme polyandry aids the invasiveness of A. cerana in two ways: (1) by increasing the sex locus allelic richness carried to new populations with each founder, thereby increasing sex locus heterozygosity; and (2) by reducing the population variance in colony fitness following a founder event.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- G Ding
- College of Plant Protection, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China.,Key Laboratory of Pollinating Insect Biology of the Ministry of Agriculture, Institute of Apicultural Research, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - H Xu
- College of Plant Protection, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China
| | - B P Oldroyd
- Behaviour and Genetics of Social Insects Laboratory, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
| | - R S Gloag
- Behaviour and Genetics of Social Insects Laboratory, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
| |
Collapse
|
7
|
Winston ME, Thompson A, Trujillo G, Burchill AT, Moreau CS. Novel approach to heritability detection suggests robustness to paternal genotype in a complex morphological trait. Ecol Evol 2017. [PMID: 28649331 PMCID: PMC5478049 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.2932] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/11/2022] Open
Abstract
Heritable variation is essential for evolution by natural selection. In Neotropical army ants, the ecological role of a given species is linked intimately to the morphological variation within the sterile worker caste. Furthermore, the army ant Eciton burchellii is highly polyandrous, presenting a unique opportunity to explore heritability of morphological traits among related workers sharing the same colonial environment. In order to exploit the features of this organismal system, we generated a large genetic and morphological dataset and applied our new method that employs geometric morphometrics (GM) to detect the heritability of complex morphological traits. After validating our approach with an existing dataset of known heritability, we simulated our ability to detect heritable variation given our sampled genotypes, demonstrating the method can robustly recover heritable variation of small effect size. Using this method, we tested for genetic caste determination and heritable morphological variation using genetic and morphological data on 216 individuals of E. burchellii. Results reveal this ant lineage (1) has the highest mating frequency known in ants, (2) demonstrates no paternal genetic caste determination, and (3) suggests a lack of heritable morphological variation in this complex trait associated with paternal genotype. We recommend this method for leveraging the increased resolution of GM data to explore and understand heritable morphological variation in nonmodel organisms.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Max E Winston
- Committee on Evolutionary Biology University of Chicago Chicago IL USA.,Department of Science and Education Integrative Research Center Field Museum of Natural History Chicago IL USA
| | - Andrea Thompson
- Department of Science and Education Integrative Research Center Field Museum of Natural History Chicago IL USA
| | - Gabriel Trujillo
- Department of Science and Education Integrative Research Center Field Museum of Natural History Chicago IL USA
| | - Andrew T Burchill
- Department of Science and Education Integrative Research Center Field Museum of Natural History Chicago IL USA.,School of Life Sciences Arizona State University Tempe AZ USA
| | - Corrie S Moreau
- Department of Science and Education Integrative Research Center Field Museum of Natural History Chicago IL USA
| |
Collapse
|
8
|
Loope KJ, Lopez-Osorio F, Dvořák L. Convergent Reversion to Single Mating in a Wasp Social Parasite. Am Nat 2017; 189:E138-E151. [PMID: 28514634 DOI: 10.1086/691405] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/04/2022]
Abstract
While eusociality arose in species with single-mating females, multiple mating by queens has evolved repeatedly across the social ants, bees, and wasps. Understanding the benefits and costs of multiple mating of queens is important because polyandry results in reduced relatedness between siblings, reducing kin-selected benefits of helping while also selecting for secondary social traits that reduce intracolony conflict. The leading hypothesis for the benefits of polyandry in social insects emphasizes advantages of a genetically diverse workforce. Workerless social parasite species (inquilines) provide a unique opportunity to test this hypothesis, since they are derived from social ancestors but do not produce workers of their own. Such parasites are thus predicted to evolve single mating because they would experience the costs of multiple mating but not the benefits if such benefits accrue through the production of a genetically diverse group of workers. Here we show that the workerless social parasite Dolichovespula arctica, a derived parasite of wasps, has reverted to obligate single mating from a facultatively polyandrous ancestor, mirroring a similar reversion from obligate polyandry to approximate monandry in a social parasite of fungus-farming ants. This finding and a comparison with two other cases where inquilinism did not induce reversal to monandry support the hypothesis that facultative polyandry can be costly and may be maintained by benefits of a genetically diverse workforce.
Collapse
|
9
|
Städele V, Vigilant L. Strategies for determining kinship in wild populations using genetic data. Ecol Evol 2016; 6:6107-20. [PMID: 27648229 PMCID: PMC5016635 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.2346] [Citation(s) in RCA: 38] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/09/2016] [Revised: 07/01/2016] [Accepted: 07/04/2016] [Indexed: 01/17/2023] Open
Abstract
Knowledge of kin relationships between members of wild animal populations has broad application in ecology and evolution research by allowing the investigation of dispersal dynamics, mating systems, inbreeding avoidance, kin recognition, and kin selection as well as aiding the management of endangered populations. However, the assessment of kinship among members of wild animal populations is difficult in the absence of detailed multigenerational pedigrees. Here, we first review the distinction between genetic relatedness and kinship derived from pedigrees and how this makes the identification of kin using genetic data inherently challenging. We then describe useful approaches to kinship classification, such as parentage analysis and sibship reconstruction, and explain how the combined use of marker systems with biparental and uniparental inheritance, demographic information, likelihood analyses, relatedness coefficients, and estimation of misclassification rates can yield reliable classifications of kinship in groups with complex kin structures. We outline alternative approaches for cases in which explicit knowledge of dyadic kinship is not necessary, but indirect inferences about kinship on a group- or population-wide scale suffice, such as whether more highly related dyads are in closer spatial proximity. Although analysis of highly variable microsatellite loci is still the dominant approach for studies on wild populations, we describe how the long-awaited use of large-scale single-nucleotide polymorphism and sequencing data derived from noninvasive low-quality samples may eventually lead to highly accurate assessments of varying degrees of kinship in wild populations.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Veronika Städele
- Department of PrimatologyMax Planck Institute for Evolutionary AnthropologyDeutscher Platz 6D‐04103LeipzigGermany
| | - Linda Vigilant
- Department of PrimatologyMax Planck Institute for Evolutionary AnthropologyDeutscher Platz 6D‐04103LeipzigGermany
| |
Collapse
|
10
|
Negroni MA, Jongepier E, Feldmeyer B, Kramer BH, Foitzik S. Life history evolution in social insects: a female perspective. CURRENT OPINION IN INSECT SCIENCE 2016; 16:51-57. [PMID: 27720050 DOI: 10.1016/j.cois.2016.05.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/15/2016] [Revised: 05/11/2016] [Accepted: 05/11/2016] [Indexed: 06/06/2023]
Abstract
Social insects are known for their unusual life histories with fecund, long-lived queens and sterile, short-lived workers. We review ultimate factors underlying variation in life history strategies in female social insects, whose social life reshapes common trade-offs, such as the one between fecundity and longevity. Interspecific life history variation is associated with colony size, mediated by changes in division of labour and extrinsic mortality. In addition to the ratio of juvenile to adult mortality, social factors such as queen number influence life history trajectories. We discuss two hypotheses explaining why queen fecundity and lifespan is higher in single-queen societies and suggest further research directions on the evolution of life history variation in social insects.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Matteo Antoine Negroni
- Institute of Zoology, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Johannes-von-Müller-Weg 6, 55128 Mainz, Germany
| | - Evelien Jongepier
- Institute of Zoology, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Johannes-von-Müller-Weg 6, 55128 Mainz, Germany
| | - Barbara Feldmeyer
- Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (BiK-F), Molecular Ecology, Senckenberganlage 25, Frankfurt am Main 60325, Germany
| | - Boris H Kramer
- Theoretical Research in Evolutionary Life Sciences (TRES), University of Groningen, Nijenborgh 7, 9747 AG Groningen, The Netherlands
| | - Susanne Foitzik
- Institute of Zoology, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Johannes-von-Müller-Weg 6, 55128 Mainz, Germany.
| |
Collapse
|
11
|
Johannesson K, Saltin SH, Charrier G, Ring AK, Kvarnemo C, André C, Panova M. Non-random paternity of offspring in a highly promiscuous marine snail suggests postcopulatory sexual selection. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 2016. [DOI: 10.1007/s00265-016-2143-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
|