1] Laboratoire d'Ethologie Expérimentale et Comparée, EA4443, Université Paris 13, Sorbonne Paris Cité, 99 avenue J.B. Clément, Villetaneuse 93430, France [2] Laboratoire Evolution, Génomes et Spéciation, CNRS-UPR 9034, Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex 91198, France.
1] Laboratoire d'Ethologie Expérimentale et Comparée, EA4443, Université Paris 13, Sorbonne Paris Cité, 99 avenue J.B. Clément, Villetaneuse 93430, France [2] Departamento de Biologia, FFCLRP, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Av. Bandeirantes, 3900, 14040-901, Ribeirão Preto - SP, Brazil [3] Department of Experimental Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of São Paulo, Av. Prof. Mello Moraes, 1721, Cidade Universitária, São Paulo 05508-030, Brazil.
Nat Commun. 2014;5:3363. doi: 10.1038/ncomms4363.
In social species, the phenotype and fitness of an individual depend in part on the genotype of its social partners. However, how these indirect genetic effects affect genotype fitness in competitive situations is poorly understood in animal societies. We therefore studied phenotypic plasticity and fitness of two clones of the ant Cerapachys biroi in monoclonal and chimeric colonies. Here we show that, while clone B has lower fitness in isolation, surprisingly, it consistently outcompetes clone A in chimeras. The reason is that, in chimeras, clone B produces more individuals specializing in reproduction rather than cooperative tasks, behaving like a facultative social parasite. A cross-fostering experiment shows that the proportion of these individuals depends on intergenomic epistasis between larvae and nursing adults, explaining the flexible allocation strategy of clone B. Our results suggest that intergenomic epistasis can be the proximate mechanism for social parasitism in ants, revealing striking analogies between social insects and social microbes.
在社会性物种中，个体的表型和适合度部分取决于其社交伙伴的基因型。然而，在动物社会中，这些间接遗传效应如何影响竞争环境中的基因型适合度还知之甚少。因此，我们研究了蚂蚁 Cerapachys biroi 的两个克隆在单克隆和嵌合体群体中的表型可塑性和适合度。我们发现，虽然克隆 B 在单独培养时的适合度较低，但令人惊讶的是，它在嵌合体中始终能胜过克隆 A。原因是，在嵌合体中，克隆 B 产生更多专门从事繁殖而不是合作任务的个体，表现得像一个兼性社会寄生虫。交叉抚育实验表明，这些个体的比例取决于幼虫和哺乳成年个体之间的基因组间上位性，解释了克隆 B 灵活的分配策略。我们的研究结果表明，基因组间上位性可能是蚂蚁社会寄生的近因机制，揭示了社会昆虫和社会微生物之间惊人的相似性。
