ArticleBMC evolutionary biology2018
Phylogenomics of palearctic Formica species suggests a single origin of temporary parasitism and gives insights to the evolutionary pathway toward slave-making behaviour.
Article in BMC evolutionary biology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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6 citing papers in PubMed, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- Introgression and Divergence in a Young Species Group.Molecular ecology · 2026Article
- Evidence of phylosymbiosis inFrontiers in microbiology · 2023Article
- Convergent evolution of a labile nutritional symbiosis in ants.The ISME journal · 2022Article
- The evolution of social parasitism inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Article
- Chance or Necessity-The Fungi Co-Occurring withInsects · 2021Article
- Spatial cognition in the context of foraging styles and information transfer in ants.Animal cognition · 2020Review
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4 authors at 3 institutions in 4 countries.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
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. DISCUSSION: The 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.
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