Abstract
BackgroundThe ants of the Formica genus are classical model species in evolutionary biology. In particular, Darwin used Formica as model species to better understand the evolution of slave-making, a parasitic behaviour where workers of another species are stolen to exploit their workforce. In his book “On the Origin of Species” (1859), Darwin first hypothesized that slave-making behaviour in Formica evolved in incremental steps from a free-living ancestor.MethodsThe absence of a well-resolved phylogenetic tree of the genus prevent an assessment of whether relationships among Formica subgenera are compatible with this scenario. In this study, we resolve the relationships among the 4 palearctic Formica subgenera (Formica str. s., Coptoformica, Raptiformica and Serviformica) using a phylogenomic dataset of 945 genes for 16 species.ResultsWe provide a reference tree resolving the relationships among the main Formica subgenera with high bootstrap supports.DiscussionThe branching order of our tree suggests that the free-living lifestyle is ancestral in the Formica genus and that parasitic colony founding could have evolved a single time, probably acting as a pre-adaptation to slave-making behaviour.ConclusionThis phylogenetic tree provides a solid backbone for future evolutionary studies in the Formica genus and slave-making behaviour.
Highlights
The ants of the Formica genus are classical model species in evolutionary biology
This phylogenetic tree provides a solid backbone for future evolutionary studies in the Formica genus and slave-making behaviour
Phylogenetic analyses We generated a phylogenomic dataset of 965 ortholog genes in 16 species that we concatenated in a single multi-gene alignment cleaned using three different procedures (CLEAN, GAPLESS and GCPOOR, see Material and Methods for details) and analysed these data with three different phylogenetic methods
Summary
The ants of the Formica genus are classical model species in evolutionary biology. In particular, Darwin used Formica as model species to better understand the evolution of slave-making, a parasitic behaviour where workers of another species are stolen to exploit their workforce. Str, are often referred to as “wood ants” and have a similar ecology They build large mounds from plant material and can start new colonies by budding or temporary parasitism. Budding is a process whereby new queens and workers leave the mother to initiate a new colony nearby This strategy is common in species forming supercolonies consisting of many inter-connected nests [9,10,11]. The fourth subgenus (Raptiformica, derived from the latin raptus: “to seize”) contains the only Formica species that practice slave-making, which is the most spectacular form of social parasitism in the genus. In addition to slave-raiding, all species of the subgenus Raptiformica initiate new colonies by temporary parasitism, to Coptoformica and Formica s. One species of Raptiformica lives in the palearctic region (F. sanguinea, which is the type-species of the subgenus), while all other species (11) are found in the nearctic region [12]
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