Jaffé Rodolfo, Kronauer Daniel J C, Kraus F Bernhard, Boomsma Jacobus J, Moritz Robin F A
Institut für Biologie, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Hoher Weg 4, 06099 Halle/Saale, Germany.
Biol Lett. 2007 Oct 22;3(5):513-6. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2007.0257.
Elaborate division of labour has contributed significantly to the ecological success of social insects. Division of labour is achieved either by behavioural task specialization or by morphological specialization of colony members. In physical caste systems, the diet and rearing environment of developing larvae is known to determine the phenotype of adult individuals, but recent studies have shown that genetic components also contribute to the determination of worker caste. One of the most extreme cases of worker caste differentiation occurs in the army ant genus Eciton, where queens mate with many males and colonies are therefore composed of numerous full-sister subfamilies. This high intracolonial genetic diversity, in combination with the extreme caste polymorphism, provides an excellent test system for studying the extent to which caste determination is genetically controlled. Here we show that genetic effects contribute significantly to worker caste fate in Eciton burchellii. We conclude that the combination of polyandry and genetic variation for caste determination may have facilitated the evolution of worker caste diversity in some lineages of social insects.
精细的分工对群居昆虫在生态上的成功起到了重要作用。分工是通过行为任务专业化或群体成员的形态专业化来实现的。在物理种姓系统中，已知发育中幼虫的饮食和饲养环境决定成年个体的表型，但最近的研究表明，遗传成分也有助于工蚁种姓的决定。工蚁种姓分化最极端的例子之一发生在行军蚁属（Eciton）中，蚁后与许多雄蚁交配，因此群体由众多全姐妹亚家族组成。这种群体内的高遗传多样性，再加上极端的种姓多态性，为研究种姓决定在多大程度上受遗传控制提供了一个绝佳的测试系统。在这里，我们表明遗传效应在布氏行军蚁（Eciton burchellii）的工蚁种姓命运中起着重要作用。我们得出结论，一妻多夫制和种姓决定的遗传变异相结合，可能促进了群居昆虫某些谱系中工蚁种姓多样性的进化。
