The ant queen that clones males of another species
Few ant news stories have made me reread the headline twice, but this one did: the queens of one species can produce males of a different species. It was published in Nature by a team led by Jonathan Romiguier of the University of Montpellier.
The protagonist is Messor ibericus, a harvester ant from southern Europe. The researchers excavated more than 50 nests and identified 132 males across 26 colonies. Some were hairy, like M. ibericus, and others were hairless, like Messor structor. Genetic tests showed that all of them had the same mother: an M. ibericus queen.
The mechanism is astonishing. The queen stores M. structor sperm in her spermatheca and uses it to clone males of that species, removing the egg's own genetic material so that only the sperm's DNA is expressed. The authors call this xenoparity. The cloned males also inherit their mother's mitochondrial DNA.
Why does it happen? Because workers only develop from the genetic combination of both species. If the queen mated only with males of her own species, her daughters would be queens with no workers to look after the colony. According to Romiguier, the two species can no longer live apart, and they split more than five million years ago.
The strategy lets colonies expand into areas where M. structor does not live, such as Sicily, but without genetic recombination the cloned males accumulate harmful mutations, which could eventually make the system collapse. It is a great reminder that the biology of queens and colonies is far stranger than introductory guides suggest.
Source: Muy Interesante
The protagonist is Messor ibericus, a harvester ant from southern Europe. The researchers excavated more than 50 nests and identified 132 males across 26 colonies. Some were hairy, like M. ibericus, and others were hairless, like Messor structor. Genetic tests showed that all of them had the same mother: an M. ibericus queen.
The mechanism is astonishing. The queen stores M. structor sperm in her spermatheca and uses it to clone males of that species, removing the egg's own genetic material so that only the sperm's DNA is expressed. The authors call this xenoparity. The cloned males also inherit their mother's mitochondrial DNA.
Why does it happen? Because workers only develop from the genetic combination of both species. If the queen mated only with males of her own species, her daughters would be queens with no workers to look after the colony. According to Romiguier, the two species can no longer live apart, and they split more than five million years ago.
The strategy lets colonies expand into areas where M. structor does not live, such as Sicily, but without genetic recombination the cloned males accumulate harmful mutations, which could eventually make the system collapse. It is a great reminder that the biology of queens and colonies is far stranger than introductory guides suggest.
Source: Muy Interesante
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