Wednesday, January 30, 2013
A Y-like social chromosome causes alternative colony organization in fire ants
"In the fire ant Solenopsis invicta, the existence of two divergent forms of social organization is under the control of a single Mendelian genomic element marked by two variants of an odorant-binding protein gene4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Here we characterize the genomic region responsible for this important social polymorphism, and show that it is part of a pair of heteromorphic chromosomes that have many of the key properties of sex chromosomes. [...] most of the genes with demonstrated expression differences between individuals of the two social forms reside in the non-recombining region. These findings highlight how genomic rearrangements can maintain divergent adaptive social phenotypes involving many genes acting together by locally limiting recombination." Full paper @ Nature 493, 664–668
Labels: ants; evolution; social behavior; collective behavior
