Kronauer Daniel J C, Johnson Robert A, Boomsma Jacobus J
Institute of Biology, Department of Population Biology, University of Copenhagen, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark.
Evolution. 2007 Feb;61(2):413-22. doi: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2007.00040.x.
The evolution of mating systems in eusocial Hymenoptera is constrained because females mate only during a brief period early in life, whereas inseminated queens and their stored sperm may live for decades. Considerable research effort during recent years has firmly established that obligate multiple mating has evolved only a few times: in Apis honeybees, Vespula wasps, Pogonomyrmex harvester ants, Atta and Acromyrmex leaf-cutting ants, the ant Cataglyphis cursor, and in at least some army ants. Here we provide estimates of queen-mating frequency for New World Neivamyrmex and Old World Aenictus species, which, compared to other army ants, have relatively small colonies and little size polymorphism among workers. To provide the first overall comparative analysis of the evolution of army ant mating systems, we combine these new results with previous estimates for African Dorylus and New World Eciton army ants, which have very large colonies and considerable worker polymorphism. We show that queens of Neivamyrmex and Aenictus mate with the same high numbers of males (usually ca. 10-20) as do queens of army ant species with very large colony sizes. We infer that multiple queen mating is ancestral in army ants and has evolved over 100 million years ago as part of the army ant adaptive syndrome. A comparison of army ants and honeybees suggests that mating systems in these two distantly related groups may have been convergently shaped by strikingly similar selective pressures.
在群居性膜翅目昆虫中，交配系统的进化受到限制，因为雌性仅在生命早期的短暂时期内进行交配，而受精后的蚁后及其储存的精子可能存活数十年。近年来，大量的研究工作已经确凿地证实，专性多次交配仅进化了几次：在蜜蜂、黄蜂、收获蚁、切叶蚁、箭蚁以及至少一些行军蚁中。在这里，我们提供了新大陆行军蚁属和旧大陆埃氏行军蚁属物种蚁后交配频率的估计值，与其他行军蚁相比，它们的蚁群相对较小，工蚁之间的体型多态性也较小。为了对行军蚁交配系统的进化进行首次全面的比较分析，我们将这些新结果与先前对非洲矛蚁属和新大陆游蚁属行军蚁的估计值相结合，这两个属的蚁群非常大，工蚁具有相当大的多态性。我们发现，行军蚁属和埃氏行军蚁属的蚁后与蚁群规模非常大的行军蚁物种的蚁后一样，与相同数量的雄性进行交配（通常约为10 - 20只）。我们推断，多次蚁后交配在行军蚁中是祖传的，并且在一亿多年前就已经进化，是行军蚁适应综合征的一部分。对行军蚁和蜜蜂的比较表明，这两个远缘类群的交配系统可能受到了极其相似的选择压力的趋同塑造。
