Proximate determinants of reproductive skew in ant populations

群体成员之间如何分享生殖权利以及是什么决定了生殖偏斜是行为生态学和进化生物学的核心问题。许多模型从群体成员之间的相关性、战斗力和生态约束来解释偏斜的大小，但隐含地假设个体能够适应性地调整自己的行为以适应当前的环境和社会条件。我们打算确定是否有不同的生殖偏态种群的蚁蚁后的生殖行为是灵活的或遗传决定的。因此，我们将研究在共同但不同的环境条件下（即，在操纵蚁后/工蜂比率后或在饥饿状态下），观察在高偏斜群体和低偏斜群体之间作为蛹交换的年轻交配蚁后的行为，并尝试将来自低偏斜群体的蚁后与来自高偏斜群体的雄蜂杂交，反之亦然，以确定F1后代的行为。行为观察将通过对L. acervorum在西班牙使用的mtDNA序列（CO I/CO II）和微卫星基因型。我们将确定人口之间的基因流的程度和估计，如果和多久的Sra de Albarracin的高偏态人口已从低偏态人口在比利牛斯山脉和坎塔布里亚山脉分离。

How reproductive rights are shared among group members and what determines reproductive skew are central questions in behavioral ecology and evolutionary biology. Numerous models explain the magnitude of skew from the relatedness among group members, their fighting strength and ecological constraints, but implicitly assume that individuals are capable of adaptively adjusting their behavior to the present environmental and social conditions. We intend to determine whether the reproductive behavior of queens of the ant Leptothorax acervorum from populations with different reproductive skew is flexible or genetically determined. We will therefore investigate the behavior of queens from several Spanish populations of L acervorum under common, but varied environmental conditions (i.e., after manipulating queen/worker ratios or under starvation), observe the behavior of young, mated queens that had been exchanged as pupae between high skew and low skew colonies, and attempt to cross queens from low skew populations with males from high skew populations and vice versa to determine the behavior of F1 offspring. Behavioral observations will be complemented by a phylogeographic analysis of L. acervorum in Spain using sequences of mt DNA (CO I / CO II) and microsatellite genotypes. We will determine the extent of gene flow between populations and estimate if and for how long the high skew population of Sra de Albarracin has been separated from the low skew populations in the Pyrenees and the Cantabrian Mts.