TY - JOUR
T1 - Relaxed selection underlies genome erosion in socially parasitic ant species
AU - Schrader, Lukas
AU - Pan, Hailin
AU - Bollazzi, Martin
AU - Schiøtt, Morten
AU - Larabee, Fredrick J.
AU - Bi, Xupeng
AU - Deng, Yuan
AU - Zhang, Guojie
AU - Boomsma, Jacobus J.
AU - Rabeling, Christian
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s).
PY - 2021/12/1
Y1 - 2021/12/1
N2 - Inquiline ants are highly specialized and obligate social parasites that infiltrate and exploit colonies of closely related species. They have evolved many times convergently, are often evolutionarily young lineages, and are almost invariably rare. Focusing on the leaf-cutting ant genus Acromyrmex, we compared genomes of three inquiline social parasites with their free-living, closely-related hosts. The social parasite genomes show distinct signatures of erosion compared to the host lineages, as a consequence of relaxed selective constraints on traits associated with cooperative ant colony life and of inquilines having very small effective population sizes. We find parallel gene losses, particularly in olfactory receptors, consistent with inquiline species having highly reduced social behavioral repertoires. Many of the genomic changes that we uncover resemble those observed in the genomes of obligate non-social parasites and intracellular endosymbionts that branched off into highly specialized, host-dependent niches.
AB - Inquiline ants are highly specialized and obligate social parasites that infiltrate and exploit colonies of closely related species. They have evolved many times convergently, are often evolutionarily young lineages, and are almost invariably rare. Focusing on the leaf-cutting ant genus Acromyrmex, we compared genomes of three inquiline social parasites with their free-living, closely-related hosts. The social parasite genomes show distinct signatures of erosion compared to the host lineages, as a consequence of relaxed selective constraints on traits associated with cooperative ant colony life and of inquilines having very small effective population sizes. We find parallel gene losses, particularly in olfactory receptors, consistent with inquiline species having highly reduced social behavioral repertoires. Many of the genomic changes that we uncover resemble those observed in the genomes of obligate non-social parasites and intracellular endosymbionts that branched off into highly specialized, host-dependent niches.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41467-021-23178-w
DO - 10.1038/s41467-021-23178-w
M3 - Article
C2 - 34006882
AN - SCOPUS:85106049979
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 12
JO - Nature communications
JF - Nature communications
IS - 1
M1 - 2918
ER -