Genetic polymorphism for chemical tags in leaf-cutting ants

尽管社会团体最明显地表现出合作，但它们也经常是冲突的现场。除非群体成员是克隆人，否则他们的生殖兴趣将会不同，个体可能会从其他群体成员的合作努力中受益。因此，作弊预计会出现在所有非克隆系统中，但不被认为发生在合作的经典例子之一--由群居昆虫饲养幼虫。成年工蚁将受益于优先抚养与其亲缘关系更密切的后代，而不是不育工蚁。虽然众所周知，化学识别标签(角质碳氢化合物)在不同的菌落之间是不同的，但它们被认为在不同的基因类型之间并没有不同。因此，工作人员被认为缺乏必要的信息来区分幼虫的基因类型，因此在饲养幼虫时无法采取任人唯亲的行为。然而，只有两项研究验证了这一预测，其中一项发现了化学标签的遗传多态，另一项则没有。该项目将在一个切叶蚂蚁系统中测试这一预测，该系统有助于检测基因多态，该系统在种姓倾向上具有有趣的基因变异，某些“王室”基因类型倾向于发育为女王。通过比较不同基因类型的成虫和幼虫的化学标签，该项目将测试进化理论，即不存在发生裙带关系所必需的基因多态。它还将比较王室和普通基因的标签，以确定前者是否有任何特殊的标签，告诉护理人员他们是皇室成员。

Although social groups most obviously exhibit cooperation, they are also often the scene of conflict. Unless group members are clones, their reproductive interests will differ and individuals may benefit by exploiting the cooperative efforts of other group members. Cheating is therefore predicted to arise in all non-clonal systems, but is not thought to occur in one of the classic examples of cooperation, the rearing of brood by social insects. Adult workers would benefit by preferentially rearing brood to which they are more related into reproductive queens rather than sterile workers. Although the chemical recognition tags (cuticular hydrocarbons) are well known to differ between colonies, they are not thought to differ between genotypes. Workers are thus believed to lack the necessary information to distinguish larvae genotypically and so are unable to act nepotistically when rearing brood. Only two studies have tested this prediction, however, with one finding genetic polymorphism for chemical tags and the other not. The project will test the prediction in a leaf-cutting ant system that facilitates the detection of genetic polymorphism and which has an intriguing genotypic variation in caste propensity, with certain 'royal' genotypes that tend to develop into queens. By comparing the chemical tags of both adults and larvae of different genotypes, the project will test the evolutionary theory that there is not the necessary genetic polymorphism for nepotism to occur. It will also compare the tags of royal and normal genotypes to determine if the former have any special tag that tells nursing workers that they are royalty.