Department of Animal Biology, University of Granada, Granada, Spain.
J Evol Biol. 2011 May;24(5):1071-9. doi: 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2011.02238.x. Epub 2011 Feb 21.
Three different isolated populations of the slave-making ant Rossomyrmex minuchae, sympatric with its obligate host Proformica longiseta, are known from the high mountains of southern Spain. To test the prediction that the slave-maker and its host represent a coevolutionary geographical mosaic, we studied the variation in the cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) as the trait most likely to show the selection mosaic, plus trait remixing by the gene flow in the populations of each species by means of microsatellites. We found within populations, host and parasite had more similar CHC profiles than between the populations or between parasites and allopatric hosts. The differences between the CHC profiles of the host and parasite, which may be responsible for the level of tolerance towards the parasite, varied between the populations suggesting the existence of a selection mosaic of coevolution. Furthermore, P. longiseta showed higher gene flow than R. minuchae, which would allow local variation in the coevolution of the host and parasite while allowing some trait remixing.
已知在西班牙南部的高山上有三个不同的奴役蚂蚁 Rossomyrmex minuchae 隔离种群，它们与专性宿主 Proformica longiseta 同域分布。为了验证奴役蚁与其宿主代表协同进化地理镶嵌体的预测，我们研究了表皮碳氢化合物 (CHC) 的变异，这是最有可能表现出选择镶嵌体的特征，加上通过微卫星对每个物种的种群进行基因流的特征混合。我们发现，在种群内，宿主和寄生虫的 CHC 谱比种群之间或寄生虫和同域宿主之间更相似。宿主和寄生虫之间的 CHC 谱差异可能是导致对寄生虫容忍度水平的差异，这表明存在协同进化的选择镶嵌体。此外，P. longiseta 的基因流高于 R. minuchae，这使得宿主和寄生虫的协同进化在局部发生，同时允许一些特征混合。
