Socially Parasitic Ants Evolve a Mosaic of Host-Matching and Parasitic Morphological Traits.

Socially Parasitic Ants Evolve a Mosaic of Host-Matching and Parasitic Morphological Traits. Curr Biol. 2020 Jul 21;: Authors: Fischer G, Friedman NR, Huang JP, Narula N, Knowles LL, Fisher BL, Mikheyev AS, Economo EP Abstract A basic expectation of evolution by natural selection is that species morphologies will adapt to their ecological niche. In social organisms, this may include selective pressure from the social environment. Many non-ant parasites of ant colonies are known to mimic the morphology of their host species, often in striking fashion [1, 2], indicating there is selection on parasite morphology to match the host (Batesian and/or Wasmannian mimicry [3]). However, ants that parasitize other ant societies are usually closely related to their hosts (Emery's rule) [4-8] and expected to be similar due to common ancestry, making any kind of mimicry difficult to detect [9]. Here, we investigate the diversification of the hyperdiverse ant genus Pheidole in Madagascar, including the evolution of 13 putative social parasite species within a broader radiation of over 100 ant species on the island. We find that the parasitic species are monophyletic and that their associated hosts are spread across the Malagasy Pheidole radiation. This provides an opportunity to test for selection on morphological similarity and divergence between parasites and hosts. Using X-ray microtomography and both linear measurements and three-dimensional (3...
Source: Current Biology - Category: Biology Authors: Tags: Curr Biol Source Type: research