Cooperation between the sexes in the ant genus Cardiocondyla
Final Report Abstract
In social insects, males can benefit by cooperating with their female mating partner and increasing the lifespan of the female, as females do not re-mate later in life and a social insect colony has to grow before sexual offspring is produced. In a former study, we could show that mating is indeed beneficial for queens of the male-dimorphic ant Cardiocondyla obscurior. Interestingly, mating with a winged male morph prolongs the lifespan of queens even more in comparison to mating with wingless males. Ultimately, this might be due to different conditions the queens have to face during their founding phase. In this project, we focus on the proximate factors that might be responsible for the differences in queen longevity and fecundity, with special focus on male seminal fluids. We could a) show that several genes of the male accessory glands are differently expressed in winged and wingless males (both with representational difference analysis of gene expression as well as with 2-D – Gel electrophoresis), and that i.a. proteins of the serpin family might play an important role with regard to lifespan and fertility, b) show that the protein pattern of another male dimorphic Cardiocondyla species (C. tjibodana) differs greatly from that of C. obscurior, suggesting a rapid evolution of seminal fluid proteins as an outcome of sexual conflict, c) show that females that were able to co-evolve with their mating partner had a higher fecundity and lived longer in comparison to females that mated with a male from a distant population, being in accordance with the theory of synergistic coevolution between the sexes, d) confirm again that queens are not subject to the trade-off of longevity and reproduction, as queens that live longer do produce more offspring, and beyond that, show that there is even a positive effect of reproduction indicated by a significant correlation between mean egg laying rate and longevity (at least in one population), d) show that queens that mated with the ergatoid male morph invested significantly more time in brood care behaviour in comparison to queens that mated with winged males, whereas they are not differently treated by the workers, suggesting that mating with different male morphs may result in different “types” of queens, and e) show that the beneficial effect of the winged male morph is not a general phenomenon in Cardiocondyla, as we could not detect any differences regarding longevity and fecundity in females that mated with either male morph in the male dimorphic species Cardiocondyla tjibodana.
Publications
- 2010: Congress of the Deutsche Zoologische Gesellschaft (German Zoological Society) in Hamburg, Germany: a) Poster “Conserved male accessory gland proteins in the ant genus Cardiocondyla”
T. Maul, M. Fuessl, A. Schrempf, J. Heinze
- 2010: Congress of the Deutsche Zoologische Gesellschaft (German Zoological Society) in Hamburg, Germany: Poster “A comparison of male accessory gland proteins in a male-dimorphic"
M. Fuessl, J. Heinze, A. Schrempf
- 2010: XVI international meeting of the IUSSI (International United Society of Social Insects) in Copenhagen, Denmark: Poster „Differences in male accessory gland proteins of the ant species Cardiocondyla obscurior“
M. Fuessl, J. Heinze, A. Schrempf
- 2011: 2nd Meeting of the Central European Section of the IUSSI in Papenburg, Germany: Talk “Cost of mating with unrelated males in the ant Cardiocondyla obscurior”
A. Schrempf
- 2011: 4th Central European Workshop of Myrmecology in Cluji, Rumania: Talk “Cooperation between the sexes in the ant species Cardiocondyla obscurior”.
M. Fuessl, J. Heinze, A. Schrempf
- 2012: 5th Congress of the European Section of the IUSSI in Montecatini Terme, Italy: Talk “Differences in the protein pattern of male accessory glands between winged and wingless males of two Cardiocondyla species”
M. Fuessl, J. Heinze, A. Schrempf
