Wingless and intermorphic males in the ant Cardiocondyla venustula
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Insectes Sociaux
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Wingless and intermorphic males in the ant Cardiocondyla venustula J. Heinze • V. Aumeier • B. Bodenstein R. M. Crewe • A. Schrempf
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Received: 13 July 2012 / Revised: 8 October 2012 / Accepted: 10 October 2012 / Published online: 25 October 2012 Ó International Union for the Study of Social Insects (IUSSI) 2012
Abstract The ant genus Cardiocondyla is characterized by a pronounced male diphenism with wingless fighter males and winged disperser males. Winged males have been lost convergently in at least two species-rich clades. Here, we describe the morphological variability of males of Cardiocondyla venustula from uThukela valley, South Africa. Winged males appear to be absent from this species. However, in addition to wingless (‘‘ergatoid’’) males with widely fused thoracic sutures and without ocelli, ‘‘intermorphic’’ males exist that combine the typical morphology of wingless males with characteristics of winged males, e.g., more pronounced thoracic sutures, rudimentary ocelli, and vestigial wings. Similar ‘‘intermorphic’’ males have previously been described from one of several genetically distinct lineages of the Southeast Asian ‘‘Cardiocondyla kagutsuchi’’ complex (Insect. Soc. 52: 274-281, 2005). To determine whether male morphology is associated with distinct clades also in C. venustula, we sequenced a 631 bp fragment of mitochondrial DNA of workers from 13 colonies. We found six haplotypes with a sequence variation of up to 5.7 %. Intermorphic and wingless males did not appear to be associated with a particular of these lineages and within colonies showed the same sequence. Interestingly, two colonies contained workers with different haplotypes, suggesting the occasional migration of queens and/or workers between colonies.
J. Heinze (&) V. Aumeier B. Bodenstein A. Schrempf Biologie I, Universita¨t Regensburg, 93040 Regensburg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] R. M. Crewe Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria 0002, South Africa
Keywords Cardiocondyla venustula Male diphenism Ergatoid male Intracolony mtDNA variation
Introduction Across related taxa of ants, males often differ less in appearance than the female castes. Their morphology is conservatively adapted for locating female sexuals and for mating during a nuptial flight or after alighting on the ground: they are uniformly winged, have bulky wing muscles, and relatively small heads with long antennae, large eyes and well-developed ocelli (e.g., Smith, 1943; Ho¨lldobler and Bartz, 1985). Wingless or short-winged (brachypterous) males with a morphology that deviates from that of ‘‘standard ant males’’ have been described from a number of genera scattered throughout the phylogeny of ants (Dolichoderinae: Technomyrmex albipes group, Terron, 1972; Yamauchi et al., 1991; Bolton, 2007; Formicinae: several species of Plagiolepis, Le Masne, 1956; Espadaler, 2007; Cerapachyinae: Cerapachys sp., Bolton, 2003; Ponerinae: Hypoponera punctatissima group, Le Masne, 194
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