Projektbeschreibung
Den Sterilitätsmechanismus von Ameisen entschlüsseln
Ein häufig beobachtetes, aber nicht erklärtes Phänomen in Kolonien sozialer Insekten ist die Sterilität der Arbeiterkasten. Der Verlust der Fähigkeit, sich fortzupflanzen, wurde bisher entweder durch die Hypothese der dominanten Monogamie, d. h. der indirekten Weitergabe von Genen, oder durch die Hypothese der Durchsetzung von Kooperation durch Überwachung erklärt. Das EU-finanzierte Projekt AntPolice wird die Umstände untersuchen, die die Sterilität der Ameisenarbeiterinnen bedingen, und zu der Hypothese gelangen, die am wahrscheinlichsten ist. Diese Untersuchung wird durch eine bahnbrechende vergleichende phylogenetische Analyse über Hunderte Ameisenarten mit neuartigen Laborversuchen an der sozial polymorphen Ameise Formica exsecta durchgeführt.
Ziel
The sterile worker castes found in the colonies of social insects are often cited as archetypal examples of altruism in nature. The challenge is to explain why losing the ability to reproduce has evolved as a superior strategy for transmitting genes into future generations. The leading explanation for the evolution of worker sterility is the monogamy hypothesis. The idea is that workers don't need to reproduce because they can transmit their genes indirectly by improving the reproductive success of the queen, who carries the same genes. For this to work, the queen should be monogamously mated, ensuring workers are raising full siblings, the genetic equivalent of their own young (r = 0.5). There has been no appropriate test of this hypothesis, however, and an alternative hypothesis, that worker sterility evolved via the enforcement of cooperation by policing, has not been ruled out. According to the policing hypothesis, workers suppress each other's reproduction by eating each other’s eggs or through aggression, leading to sterility through evolutionary time. Crucially, policing is predicted to evolve when relatedness is low, in contrast to the monogamy hypothesis.
Here, I propose an interdisciplinary approach that combines a cutting-edge phylogenetic comparative analysis across ~500 ant species with novel lab-based experiments on the socially polymorphic ant, Formica exsecta, to test between the low and high relatedness evolutionary pathways to worker sterility. Contrary to common belief, workers in most ant species can lay eggs due to their haplodiploid sex determination system, making them an ideal system for answering this question. This project will fill a crucial gap in our knowledge of how complex life on Earth evolved and potentially overturn the long-held hypothesis that high relatedness is the only route to cooperation.
Wissenschaftliches Gebiet
Schlüsselbegriffe
Programm/Programme
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Aufforderung zur Vorschlagseinreichung
Andere Projekte für diesen Aufruf anzeigenFinanzierungsplan
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European FellowshipsKoordinator
90014 Oulu
Finnland