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Desiccation limits recruitment in the pleometrotic desert seed‐harvester ant Veromessor pergandei

The desert harvester ant Veromessor pergandei displays geographic variation in colony founding with queens initiating nests singly (haplometrosis) or in groups (pleometrosis). The transition from haplo‐ to pleometrotic founding is associated with lower rainfall. Numerous hypotheses have been propose...

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Autor principal: Johnson, Robert A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7790620/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33437430
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.7039
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author Johnson, Robert A.
author_facet Johnson, Robert A.
author_sort Johnson, Robert A.
collection PubMed
description The desert harvester ant Veromessor pergandei displays geographic variation in colony founding with queens initiating nests singly (haplometrosis) or in groups (pleometrosis). The transition from haplo‐ to pleometrotic founding is associated with lower rainfall. Numerous hypotheses have been proposed to explain the evolution of cooperative founding in this species, but the ultimate explanation remains unanswered. In laboratory experiments, water level was positively associated with survival, condition, and brood production by single queens. Queen survival also was positively influenced by water level and queen number in a two‐factor experiment. Water level also was a significant effect for three measures of queen condition, but queen number was not significant for any measure. Foundress queens excavated after two weeks of desiccating conditions were dehydrated compared to alate queens captured from their natal colony, indicating that desiccation can be a source of queen mortality. Long‐term monitoring in central Arizona, USA, documented that recruitment only occurred in four of 20 years. A discriminant analysis using rainfall as a predictor of recruitment correctly predicted recruitment in 17 of 20 years for total rainfall from January to June (the period for mating flights and establishment) and in 19 of 20 years for early plus late rainfall (January–March and April–June, respectively), often with a posterior probability > 0.90. Moreover, recruitment occurred only in years in which both early and late rainfall exceeded the long‐term mean. This result also was supported by the discriminant analysis predicting no recruitment when long‐term mean early and late rainfall were included as ungrouped periods. These data suggest that pleometrosis in V. pergandei evolved to enhance colony survival in areas with harsh abiotic (desiccating) conditions, facilitating colonization of habitats in which solitary queens could not establish even in wet years. This favorable‐year hypothesis supports enhanced worker production as the primary advantage of pleometrosis.
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spelling pubmed-77906202021-01-11 Desiccation limits recruitment in the pleometrotic desert seed‐harvester ant Veromessor pergandei Johnson, Robert A. Ecol Evol Original Research The desert harvester ant Veromessor pergandei displays geographic variation in colony founding with queens initiating nests singly (haplometrosis) or in groups (pleometrosis). The transition from haplo‐ to pleometrotic founding is associated with lower rainfall. Numerous hypotheses have been proposed to explain the evolution of cooperative founding in this species, but the ultimate explanation remains unanswered. In laboratory experiments, water level was positively associated with survival, condition, and brood production by single queens. Queen survival also was positively influenced by water level and queen number in a two‐factor experiment. Water level also was a significant effect for three measures of queen condition, but queen number was not significant for any measure. Foundress queens excavated after two weeks of desiccating conditions were dehydrated compared to alate queens captured from their natal colony, indicating that desiccation can be a source of queen mortality. Long‐term monitoring in central Arizona, USA, documented that recruitment only occurred in four of 20 years. A discriminant analysis using rainfall as a predictor of recruitment correctly predicted recruitment in 17 of 20 years for total rainfall from January to June (the period for mating flights and establishment) and in 19 of 20 years for early plus late rainfall (January–March and April–June, respectively), often with a posterior probability > 0.90. Moreover, recruitment occurred only in years in which both early and late rainfall exceeded the long‐term mean. This result also was supported by the discriminant analysis predicting no recruitment when long‐term mean early and late rainfall were included as ungrouped periods. These data suggest that pleometrosis in V. pergandei evolved to enhance colony survival in areas with harsh abiotic (desiccating) conditions, facilitating colonization of habitats in which solitary queens could not establish even in wet years. This favorable‐year hypothesis supports enhanced worker production as the primary advantage of pleometrosis. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2020-11-22 /pmc/articles/PMC7790620/ /pubmed/33437430 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.7039 Text en © 2020 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Research
Johnson, Robert A.
Desiccation limits recruitment in the pleometrotic desert seed‐harvester ant Veromessor pergandei
title Desiccation limits recruitment in the pleometrotic desert seed‐harvester ant Veromessor pergandei
title_full Desiccation limits recruitment in the pleometrotic desert seed‐harvester ant Veromessor pergandei
title_fullStr Desiccation limits recruitment in the pleometrotic desert seed‐harvester ant Veromessor pergandei
title_full_unstemmed Desiccation limits recruitment in the pleometrotic desert seed‐harvester ant Veromessor pergandei
title_short Desiccation limits recruitment in the pleometrotic desert seed‐harvester ant Veromessor pergandei
title_sort desiccation limits recruitment in the pleometrotic desert seed‐harvester ant veromessor pergandei
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7790620/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33437430
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.7039
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