The fecundity/longevitiy tradeoff in a clonal ant

多年生真社会性昆虫的繁殖力与寿命之间不存在权衡关系，这一假设的证据主要来自对工蜂、蜂王和少数蚂蚁物种的比较研究。在这些分类群中，两个种姓在个体发育、形态、交配状态和工蜂对它们的照顾方面差别很大。因此，要理清各种因素对适应度参数的影响并不容易。在本项目中，我们打算研究点状白蚁（Platythyrea punctata）的繁殖力和寿命之间的相互关系，在这种蚂蚁中，所有的工蚁原则上都能够通过细胞性孤雌生殖从未受精卵产生雌性后代，并且群体基本上由无性系组成。我们将比较生殖和非生殖、基因和形态相同、年龄相同、同样处于各种环境和社会条件下的克隆体的激素滴度和转录组，以揭示最终控制繁殖力和衰老的内分泌和基因组途径。此外，通过对非生殖负荷的操纵，我们将研究“磨损”在工人老龄化中的作用。

Evidence for the presumed absence of a fecundity/longevity trade-off in perennial eusocial insects stems mostly from comparative studies on workers and queens of honeybees and a few ant species. In these taxa, the two castes differ enormously in ontogeny, morphology, mating status, and the care they receive from workers. It is therefore not easy to disentangle the effects of the various factors on fitness parameters. In the present project we intend to investigate the interrelations among fecundity and longevity in the ant Platythyrea punctata, in which all workers are in principle capable of producing female offspring from unfertilized eggs through thelytokous parthenogenesis and colonies essentially consist of clones. We will compare the hormone titres and transcriptomes of reproductive and non-reproductive, genetically and morphologically identical clonemates of equal age and equally kept under a variety of environmental and social conditions to shed light on the endocrine and genomic pathways that ultimately control fecundity and aging.Furthermore, by manipulation of the workload of non-reproductives we will examine the role of "wear and tear" in aging in workers.