Influence of Mutualistic Lifestyle, Mutualistic Partner, and Climate on Cuticular Hydrocarbon Profiles in Parabiotic Ants

Sprenger, Philipp P.; Hartke, Juliane; Feldmeyer, Barbara; Orivel, Jérôme; Schmitt, Thomas; Menzel, Florian

doi:10.1007/s10886-019-01099-9

Cited by 8 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…levior or one Ca. femoratus worker taken from nests prior to the experiment (Table 1) and analysed using gas‐chromatography mass‐spectrometry (GC–MS, see Sprenger et al ., 2019 for details on the method). Unfortunately, due to sample loss the identity of five Camponotus and three Crematogaster colonies is unknown (Table 1); these samples were retained in the dataset but the identity was set to NA.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dinner with the roommates: trophic niche differentiation and competition in a mutualistic ant‐ant association

Sprenger

Müsse

Hartke

et al. 2020

Ecological Entomology

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1. The potential for competition is highest among species in close association. Despite net benefits for both parties, mutualisms can involve costs, including food competition. This might be true for the two neotropical ants Camponotus femoratus and Crematogaster levior, which share the same nest in a presumably mutualistic association (parabiosis). 2. While each nest involves one Crematogaster and one Camponotus partner, both taxa were recently found to comprise two cryptic species that show no partner preferences and seem ecologically similar. Since these cryptic species often occur in close sympatry, they might need to partition their niches to avoid competitive exclusion. 3. Here, we investigated first, is there interference competition between parabiotic Camponotus and Crematogaster, and do they prefer different food sources under competition? And second, is there trophic niche partitioning between the cryptic species of either genus? 4. Using cafeteria experiments, neutral lipid fatty acid and stable isotope analyses, we found evidence for interference competition, but also trophic niche partitioning between Camponotus and Crematogaster. Both preferred protein‐ and carbohydrate‐rich baits, but at protein‐rich baits Ca. femoratus displaced Cr. levior over time, suggesting a potential discovery‐dominance trade‐off between parabiotic partners. Only limited evidence was found for trophic differentiation between the cryptic species of each genus. 5. Although we cannot exclude differentiation in other niche dimensions, we argue that neutral dynamics might mediate the coexistence of cryptic species. This model system is highly suitable for further studies of the maintenance of species diversity and the role of mutualisms in promoting species coexistence.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dinner with the roommates: trophic niche differentiation and competition in a mutualistic ant‐ant association

Sprenger

Müsse

Hartke

et al. 2020

Ecological Entomology

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“…In this study, we conducted a population genomic analysis with two closely related, cryptic ant species C. levior A and B. The two species are morphologically very similar, share the same habitat and show no difference in the choice of their mutualistic partners (Hartke, Sprenger, et al., 2019), but show striking differences in their CHC profiles (Menzel et al, 2014; Menzel et al., 2017; Sprenger et al., 2019). We correlated different environmental parameters and the population‐specific CHC profiles to allele frequency differences within each species to untangle the genomic basis of local and climate adaptation and identify potential signatures of parallel evolution.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The PCAs based on the cuticular hydrocarbon profiles of colonies resulted in four PCs that explained 100% of the variance in both species (Figure S3). A combined PCA based on CHC profiles for both C. levior A and B (Figure 2) showed a clear separation of the species (see also Hartke, Sprenger, et al, 2019) and reflected the highly differentiated cuticular hydrocarbon profiles (Sprenger et al, 2019). The first principal component explained 59.6% of the variation and separated C. levior A from C. levior B.…”

Section: Principal Component Analyses Of Populationspecific Parametersmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…The colonies of these closely related cryptic sister species, that are mutualistically shared with the ant Camponotus femoratus , occur in sympatry (often within a few metres) over a large part of their distribution range and are thus subject to the same climatic selection pressures in these areas (Hartke, Sprenger, et al., 2019; Sprenger et al., 2019). Despite their modest genetic distance (Hartke, Sprenger, et al., 2019), and their strong morphological analogy, the two cryptic species show striking differences in their cuticular hydrocarbon profiles (Emery & Tsutsui 2013; Hartke, Sprenger, et al., 2019; Menzel et al., 2017; Sprenger et al., 2019), which might, for example, be indicative for differential adaptation to climate (Gibbs et al., 1997), or differential selection on recognition, for example mate‐choice (Thomas & Simmons, 2009). Based on the mitochondrial molecular clock (2.3%–4% bp changes per million years in insects; Norman et al 2016), we estimate the divergence time for the two Crematogaster species to be somewhere between 946 kya and 1.65 mya (based on 3.79% sequence divergence in the mitochondrial marker COI (Hartke, Sprenger, et al., 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Little parallelism in genomic signatures of local adaptation in two sympatric, cryptic sister species

Hartke

Waldvogel

Sprenger

et al. 2021

J of Evolutionary Biology

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Species living in sympatry and sharing a similar niche often express parallel phenotypes as a response to similar selection pressures. The degree of parallelism within underlying genomic levels is often unexplored, but can give insight into the mechanisms of natural selection and adaptation. Here, we use multi‐dimensional genomic associations to assess the basis of local and climate adaptation in two sympatric, cryptic Crematogaster levior ant species along a climate gradient. Additionally, we investigate the genomic basis of chemical communication in both species. Communication in insects is mainly mediated by cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs), which also protect against water loss and, hence, are subject to changes via environmental acclimation or adaptation. The combination of environmental and chemical association analyses based on genome‐wide Pool‐Seq data allowed us to identify single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with climate and with chemical differences. Within species, CHC changes as a response to climate seem to be driven by phenotypic plasticity, since there is no overlap between climate‐ and CHC‐associated SNPs. The only exception is the odorant receptor OR22c, which may be a candidate for population‐specific CHC recognition in one of the species. Within both species, climate is significantly correlated with CHC differences, as well as to allele frequency differences. However, associated candidate SNPs, genes and functions are largely species‐specific and we find evidence for minimal parallel evolution only on the level of genomic regions (J = 0.04). This highlights that even closely related species may follow divergent evolutionary trajectories when expressing similar adaptive phenotypes.

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“…Interspecific interactions have also been addressed as potentially relevant forces in the evolutionary change of cuticular hydrocarbons, both in quantitative and qualitative aspects. For example, living in association with other species (parabiosis) and not climatic factors may have promoted the evolution of chemical profiles characterized by longer hydrocarbons and higher proportions of branched alkenes and alkadienes among the ants of the genus Camponotus and Crematogaster (Menzel and Schmitt 2012; but see Sprenger et al 2019). Similarly, the proportion of branched hydrocarbons was larger in two populations of Polistes biglumis social wasps that were infested by Polistes atrimandibularis social parasites than in a parasite-free population, while local climatic factors did not explain this divergence (Lorenzi et al 2014).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Highly divergent cuticular hydrocarbon profiles in the cleptobiotic ants of the Ectatomma ruidum species complex

et al. 2020

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In social insects, chemical communication is the main communication mode among colony members, which use the blends of cuticular hydrocarbons as recognition cues to discriminate between nestmates and non-nestmates and to prevent the exploitation of their nest resources by aliens. The aim of this study was to assess the variation of nestmate recognition cues in the ant Ectatomma ruidum, a species complex with a considerably conserved morphology and one of the few ant species where intraspecific thievery, a form of cleptoparasitism, has been reported. We analyzed the cuticular hydrocarbon profiles of ants collected from a number of geographically separated populations, and examined DNA sequence data to assess their species identity. We focused on one species of the complex, E. ruidum sp. 3-4, whose species delineation remains controversial. We documented that several quantitative and qualitative traits of the cuticular hydrocarbon profiles varied significantly between populations, indicating that this species harbors more cuticular chemical phenotypic diversity than expected within a single species. In particular, there was a striking divergence among populations in the proportion of methylalkanes, alkenes, alkadienes and odd-chain components, which likely play a major role in nestmate/non-nestmate discrimination, a process which might have been crucial in these cleptobiotic ants. Further investigations are needed to test the hypothesis that biotic pressures, such as the need to discriminate conspecific intruders and limit thievery, could have played an important role in promoting the evolutionary divergence between populations in this ant species complex.

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Influence of Mutualistic Lifestyle, Mutualistic Partner, and Climate on Cuticular Hydrocarbon Profiles in Parabiotic Ants

Cited by 8 publications

References 55 publications

Dinner with the roommates: trophic niche differentiation and competition in a mutualistic ant‐ant association

Dinner with the roommates: trophic niche differentiation and competition in a mutualistic ant‐ant association

Little parallelism in genomic signatures of local adaptation in two sympatric, cryptic sister species

Highly divergent cuticular hydrocarbon profiles in the cleptobiotic ants of the Ectatomma ruidum species complex

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