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Interruption points in the wing gene regulatory network underlying wing polyphenism evolved independently in male and female morphs in Cardiocondyla ants
Author(s) -
Oettler Jan,
Platschek Tobias,
Schmidt Christine,
Rajakumar Rajendhran,
Favé MarieJulie,
Khila Abderrahman,
Heinze Jürgen,
Abouheif Ehab
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of experimental zoology part b: molecular and developmental evolution
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.823
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1552-5015
pISSN - 1552-5007
DOI - 10.1002/jez.b.22834
Subject(s) - polyphenism , biology , wing , mating , zoology , evolutionary biology , ecology , larva , engineering , aerospace engineering
Wing polyphenism in ants, which produces a winged female queen caste and a wingless female worker caste, evolved approximately 150 million years ago and has been key to the remarkable success of ants. Approximately 20 million years ago, the myrmicine ant genus Cardiocondyla evolved an additional wing polyphenism among males producing two male morphs: wingless males that fight to enhance mating success and winged males that disperse. Here we show that interruption of rudimentary wing‐disc development in larvae of the ant Cardiocondyla obscurior occurs further downstream in the network in wingless males as compared with wingless female workers. This pattern is corroborated in C. kagutsuchi , a species from a different clade within the genus, indicating that late interruption of wing development in males is conserved across Cardiocondyla . Therefore, our results show that the novel male wing polyphenism was not developmentally constrained by the pre‐existing female wing polyphenism and evolved through independent alteration of interruption points in the wing gene network. Furthermore, a comparison of adult morphological characters in C. obscurior reveals that developmental trajectories lead to similar morphological trait integration between winged and wingless females, but dramatically different integration between winged and wingless males. This suggests that the alternative sex‐specific developmental routes to achieve winglessness in the genus Cardiocondyla may have evolved through different selection regimes acting on wingless males and females.

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