10.5061/DRYAD.QJ3SB
Kronauer, Daniel J. C.
Harvard University
Tsuji, Kazuki
University of the Ryukyus
Pierce, Naomi E.
Harvard University
Keller, Laurent
University of Lausanne
Data from: Non-nest mate discrimination and clonal colony structure in the
parthenogenetic ant Cerapachys biroi
Dryad
dataset
2014
Chimera
Cerapachys biroi
Cerapachyinae
Asexuality
Aggression
thelytoky
2014-01-31T21:02:08Z
2014-01-31T21:02:08Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/ars227
75776 bytes
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CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Understanding the interplay between cooperation and conflict in social
groups is a major goal of biology. One important factor is genetic
relatedness, and animal societies are usually composed of related but
genetically different individuals, setting the stage for conflicts over
reproductive allocation. Recently, however, it has been found that several
ant species reproduce predominantly asexually. Although this can
potentially give rise to clonal societies, in the few well-studied cases,
colonies are often chimeric assemblies of different genotypes, due to
worker drifting or colony fusion. In the ant Cerapachys biroi, queens are
absent and all individuals reproduce via thelytokous parthenogenesis,
making this species an ideal study system of asexual reproduction and its
consequences for social dynamics. Here, we show that colonies in our study
population on Okinawa, Japan, recognize and effectively discriminate
against foreign workers, especially those from unrelated asexual lineages.
In accord with this finding, colonies never contained more than a single
asexual lineage and average pairwise genetic relatedness within colonies
was extremely high (r = 0.99). This implies that the scope for social
conflict in C. biroi is limited, with unusually high potential for
cooperation and altruism.
Kronauer et al. 2013 Beh Ecol Microsatellite DataMicrosatellite genotype
raw data
Japan
Okinawa