Radiation in socially parasitic Formicoxenine ants

小桃金娘蚂蚁部落Formicoxenini非常丰富的社会寄生虫，即利用已经建立的其他社会昆虫群落来饲养自己的后代的物种。超过10%的社会寄生蚂蚁属于Formicoxenini，有人认为社会寄生在这个分类群中集中进化了十多次。我们的建议旨在研究五种社会寄生的甲氧西林蚂蚁分类群中不同进化模式的原因：合头蚁属、表型蚁属、哈帕戈克星蚁属、杜氏细胸蚁属和美洲原眼蚁属。特别是，我们想要确定寄生虫-宿主联合的历史、交配行为、印记和宿主小种的形成在物种形成/辐射中的潜在影响。我们建议a)根据序列数据建立甲氧西林寄生虫及其细胸宿主的系统发育，b)研究社会寄生虫种群内和种群间的遗传变异，c)用气相色谱和质谱仪研究巢气味的化学基础，这可能在印记和宿主小种的形成中起作用。由于在两个单独的项目(或107/1，Fo 298/2)中，对Epimyrma和Protomogna的研究部分已由DFG资助，因此本提案将重点放在剩余的三个分类群上，并最终比较所有五个谱系之间的差异。

The small myrmicine ant tribe Formicoxenini is extraordinarily rich in social parasites, i.e. species that exploit already established societies of other social insects to rear their own offspring. More than 10% of all socially parasitic ants belong to the Formicoxenini and it was suggested that social parasitism convergently evolved more than ten times in this taxon. Our proposal aims at investigating the causes of different evolutionary patterns in five taxa of socially parasitic formicoxenine ants: Chalepoxenus spp., Epimyrma spp., Harpagoxenus spp., Leptothorax duloticus, and Protomognathus americanus. In particular, we want to determine the potential influence of the history of parasite-host associations, mating behavior, and imprinting and the formation of host races in speciation/radiation. We suggest to a) construct a phylogeny of formicoxenine parasites and their Leptothorax hosts from sequence data, b) study genetic variation within and between populations of social parasites, and c) investigate by gas chromatography and mass spectrometry the chemical basis of nest odor which might play a role in imprinting and the formation of host races. As studies on Epimyrma and Protomognathus are in part already funded by DFG in two separate projects (Or 107/1, Fo 298/2), the present proposal will focus on the three remaining taxa and, in the end, the comparison among all five lineages.