ArticleJournal of chemical ecology2016
Species-Specific Cuticular Hydrocarbon Stability within European Myrmica Ants.
Article in Journal of chemical ecology, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed.
- Oxidizing pollutants can disrupt nestmate recognition in ants.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Cuticular Hydrocarbons of Six Geographic Populations ofInsects · 2025Article
- Differentiation ofInsects · 2024Article
- Cuticular Hydrocarbon Polymorphism in a Parasitoid Wasp.Journal of chemical ecology · 2023Article
- Cuticular Hydrocarbon Plasticity in Three Rice Planthopper Species.International journal of molecular sciences · 2021Article
- Chemical Variation among Castes, Female Life Stages and Populations of the Facultative Eusocial Sweat Bee Halictus rubicundus (Hymenoptera: Halictidae).Journal of chemical ecology · 2021Article
- Advances in the Study of Olfaction in Eusocial Ants.Insects · 2021Review
- The dear enemy effect drives conspecific aggressiveness in an Azteca-Cecropia system.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Host Ant Change of a Socially Parasitic Butterfly (Insects · 2020Article
- The Microbiome of the Maculinea-Myrmica Host-Parasite Interaction.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- Patterns of host use by brood parasitic Maculinea butterflies across Europe.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2019Article
- Is the Salivary Gland Associated with Honey Bee Recognition Compounds in Worker Honey Bees (Apis mellifera)?Journal of chemical ecology · 2018Article
- Are Isomeric Alkenes Used in Species Recognition among Neo-Tropical Stingless Bees (Melipona Spp).Journal of chemical ecology · 2017Article
- Chemical footprints mediate habitat selection in co-occurring aphids.Behavioral ecology : official journal of the International Society for Behavioral EcologyArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
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.
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