ArticleGenome research2011
The genome of the leaf-cutting ant Acromyrmex echinatior suggests key adaptations to advanced social life and fungus farming.
Article in Genome research, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 117 papers.
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117 citing papers in PubMed, 238 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Genome analysis and genomic comparison of a fungal cultivar of the nonsocial weevilFrontiers in microbiology · 2023Article
- Hymenoptera Genome Database: new genomes and annotation datasets for improved go enrichment and orthologue analyses.Nucleic acids research · 2022Article
- The genomic basis of army ant chemosensory adaptations.Molecular ecology · 2021Article
- Genome-wide transcriptome signatures of ant-farmedEcology and evolution · 2021Article
- Competition-based screening helps to secure the evolutionary stability of a defensive microbiome.BMC biology · 2021Article
- Rapid Genomic Evolution Drives the Diversification of Male Reproductive Genes in Dung Beetles.Genome biology and evolution · 2021Article
- Relaxed selection underlies genome erosion in socially parasitic ant species.Nature communications · 2021Article
- Divide and conquer: Multicolonial structure, nestmate recognition, and antagonistic behaviors in dense populations of the invasive antEcology and evolution · 2021Article
57 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
16 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
We present a high-quality (>100× depth) Illumina genome sequence of the leaf-cutting ant Acromyrmex echinatior, a model species for symbiosis and reproductive conflict studies. We compare this genome with three previously sequenced genomes of ants from different subfamilies and focus our analyses on aspects of the genome likely to be associated with known evolutionary changes. The first is the specialized fungal diet of A. echinatior, where we find gene loss in the ant's arginine synthesis pathway, loss of detoxification genes, and expansion of a group of peptidase proteins. One of these is a unique ant-derived contribution to the fecal fluid, which otherwise consists of "garden manuring" fungal enzymes that are unaffected by ant digestion. The second is multiple mating of queens and ejaculate competition, which may be associated with a greatly expanded nardilysin-like peptidase gene family. The third is sex determination, where we could identify only a single homolog of the feminizer gene. As other ants and the honeybee have duplications of this gene, we hypothesize that this may partly explain the frequent production of diploid male larvae in A. echinatior. The fourth is the evolution of eusociality, where we find a highly conserved ant-specific profile of neuropeptide genes that may be related to caste determination. These first analyses of the A. echinatior genome indicate that considerable genetic changes are likely to have accompanied the transition from hunter-gathering to agricultural food production 50 million years ago, and the transition from single to multiple queen mating 10 million years ago.
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