Guillem Rhian M, Drijfhout Falko P, Martin Stephen J
Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield, S10 2TN, Sheffield, UK.
Department of Earth & Life Sciences, Gibraltar Botanic Gardens Campus, University of Gibraltar, Gibraltar, GX11 1AA, Gibraltar.
J Chem Ecol. 2016 Oct;42(10):1052-1062. doi: 10.1007/s10886-016-0784-x. Epub 2016 Nov 10.
Recognition is a fundamental process on which all subsequent behaviors are based at every organizational level, from the gene up to the super-organism. At the whole organism level, visual recognition is the best understood. However, chemical communication is far more widespread than visual communication, but despite its importance is much less understood. Ants provide an excellent model system for chemical ecology studies as it is well established that compounds known as cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) are used as recognition cues in ants. Therefore, stable species-specific odors should exist, irrespective of geographic locality. We tested this hypothesis by comparing the CHC profiles of workers of twelve species of Myrmica ants from four countries across Europe, from Iberia to the Balkans and from the Mediterranean to Fennoscandia. CHCs remained qualitatively stable within each species, right down to the isomer level. Despite the morphological similarity that occurs within the genus Myrmica, their CHCs were highly diverse but remarkably species-specific and stable across wide geographical areas. This indicates a genetic mechanism under strong selection that produces these species-specific chemical profiles, despite each species encountering different environmental conditions across its range.
识别是一个基本过程，在从基因到超级生物体的每个组织层面上，所有后续行为都基于此。在整个生物体层面，视觉识别是最容易理解的。然而，化学通讯比视觉通讯更为广泛，但尽管其很重要，却远未得到充分理解。蚂蚁为化学生态学研究提供了一个出色的模型系统，因为众所周知，被称为表皮碳氢化合物（CHCs）的化合物在蚂蚁中用作识别线索。因此，无论地理位置如何，都应该存在稳定的物种特异性气味。我们通过比较来自欧洲四个国家、从伊比利亚到巴尔干半岛以及从地中海到芬兰斯堪的纳维亚半岛的12种蚁属蚂蚁工蚁的CHC谱来检验这一假设。CHCs在每个物种内直至异构体水平都保持定性稳定。尽管蚁属内存在形态相似性，但其CHCs高度多样，但在广泛的地理区域内具有显著的物种特异性和稳定性。这表明存在一种在强烈选择下的遗传机制，尽管每个物种在其分布范围内遇到不同的环境条件，但仍能产生这些物种特异性的化学特征。
