Among the several thousand “industrious” ant species, there are hundreds that are considered social parasites.
The researchers made their discovery by accident.They found a queen-like mutant in a colony of clonal ants, Ooceraea biroi. This ant species usually has no queens and reproduces asexually, so the sudden appearance of a mutant has become noticeable. Such insects were born with wings, large eyes and ovaries, and in adulthood they ignored labor.
Ant species: classical worker and queen distribution (a), parasitic mutant (b), and clonal asexually reproducing worker ant (c). Image: Waring Trible et al., Current Biology
In further experiments, scientists found thatsuch mutants often live in colonies of other ants, remaining unnoticed. At the same time, genetic analysis showed that these ants mutated within the colony in which they were found. They reproduce asexually: they lay eggs that turn into copies of the same "parasites".
The researchers also found that groupscomposed entirely of queen-like mutants, they were half the size of the worker ant squads. At the same time, they were less likely to try to recruit other ants to search for food and tried not to leave the colony.
In addition, although the mutants were more active in layingeggs (about twice as many as the main species of the colony), their numbers are controlled. As long as the proportion of mutants does not exceed a quarter of the anthill, they actively multiply. After that, when there are not enough worker ants to serve all the "queens", some of them die in infancy. This is because the mutants require the help of workers to free their wings when they emerge from their pupae.
The researchers found that all changesassociated with a single mutation in the supergene. It combines over 200 individual genes that control hormone metabolism. The researchers believe that such mutations can also occur in other ant species and quickly lead to the development of two species of insects “in one step”.
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Cover image: Daniel Kronauer, The Rockefeller University