Purcell Jessica, Brelsford Alan, Wurm Yannick, Perrin Nicolas, Chapuisat Michel
Department of Ecology and Evolution, Biophore, UNIL-Sorge, University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
Department of Ecology and Evolution, Biophore, UNIL-Sorge, University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
Curr Biol. 2014 Nov 17;24(22):2728-32. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2014.09.071. Epub 2014 Oct 23.
Complex adaptive polymorphisms are common in nature, but what mechanisms maintain the underlying favorable allelic combinations? The convergent evolution of polymorphic social organization in two independent ant species provides a great opportunity to investigate how genomes evolved under parallel selection. Here, we demonstrate that a large, nonrecombining "social chromosome" is associated with social organization in the Alpine silver ant, Formica selysi. This social chromosome shares architectural characteristics with that of the fire ant Solenopsis invicta, but the two show no detectable similarity in gene content. The discovery of convergence at two levels--the phenotype and the genetic architecture associated with alternative social forms--points at general genetic mechanisms underlying transitions in social organization. More broadly, our findings are consistent with recent theoretical studies suggesting that suppression of recombination plays a key role in facilitating coordinated shifts in coadapted traits.
复杂适应性多态性在自然界中很常见，但是什么机制维持了潜在的有利等位基因组合呢？两种独立蚁种中多态社会结构的趋同进化为研究基因组在平行选择下如何进化提供了绝佳机会。在这里，我们证明了一条大型的、不发生重组的“社会染色体”与高山银蚁（Formica selysi）的社会结构相关。这条社会染色体与红火蚁（Solenopsis invicta）的社会染色体具有相同的结构特征，但二者在基因内容上没有可检测到的相似性。在两个层面上发现趋同现象——表型以及与不同社会形式相关的遗传结构——表明了社会组织转变背后的一般遗传机制。更广泛地说，我们的研究结果与最近的理论研究一致，这些研究表明重组抑制在促进共适应性状的协调转变中起关键作用。
