They Work, They Sting, But Fire Ants Also Possess Rare "Social" Chromosome
Sounds a bit like Mark Zuckerberg?
Fire ant queens in South Carolina
SwitzerlandFutureLE TEMPSSourcesCountries
Pascaline Minet
LAUSANNE - Is it better to be ruled by one queen or several queens? You can encounter both situations within colonies of fire ants, social insects known for their nasty stings. The fact that both systems coexist as a single species is rare, and until now the factor responsible for it remained unknown.
A new inquiry conducted by researchers in Lausanne, Switzerland concludes that there is in fact a set of genes that determines numerous ant characteristics, for instance, whether they tolerate one queen or several.
The fire ants –- in Latin, Solenopsis invicta -- are known for the severe rashes they leave after using the toxic venom injected through a sting on the bottom of their abdomen. Since their unscheduled arrival in the United States in 1930, these insects from South America kept multiplying, reached Australia a few decades ago and more recently arrived in China. Apart from the danger emanating from getting stung, they are a scourge for both crops and other types of ants they do battling with, according to the study, which has been published in the latest issue of Nature magazine,
The S. invicta knows two models of social organization. The first, called monogyna, has only one regent ruling the workers; the other, polygyna, has several queens within the same colony. In the first case, the new queens born in the community fly off to mate with a male before creating a new nest of her own, far from her original colony. They store a large quantity of fat to feed her larvae. In the polygyna regime, young queens don't store fat before leaving; once impregnated, they join an already settled neighboring colony to lay their eggs, or they simply stay where they are.
But this species has another specificity that may have a broader significance: The polygyna and monogyna "citizens" are able to mutually detect each other thanks to their scent. This ability allows them to know which regime the other queen belongs to when they meet her for the first time. The communities have strict defensive rules: if the newcomer isn't fit for their society, they go for the kill.
In order to get to the bottom of it, Laurent Keller's team of biologists from Lausanne University compared the genome of several queen ants with their descendants. A long-term study rendered possible by the progress made in sequential genetics and data analysis thanks to computer tools from the Swiss Bioinformatics Institute.
Follow the scent
This analysis proved that a part of a chromosome from the fire ant was remarkably preserved from mother to child. This piece of chromosome identified by the scientists comprises 600 genes including the famous Gp-9.
According to Keller and his coworkers, this piece of chromosome, this "super-gene" as they call it, is the source of the social models of the fire ant. It is said to contain determinant information on the ants' scent, but also the queen's fat level and other traits linked to the social organization, such as the height of the workers.
"All these genes appear to have been selected to end up together into this piece of chromosome," explains Keller.
Serge Aron, social insects specialist at Brussels University, calls it a "major step forward, for it's the only evidence of a "social chromosome" in the animal kingdom."
Joel Meunier from Mainz University, Germany, says the study provides "a better understanding of how the two community models could survive within the same species all these years."
As for Laurent Keller, he believes that such a "super-gene" also exists within other insects or even birds.
Such a gene conglomerate running through generations isn't new for geneticists since the same process applies to the mammals' Y sexual male chromosome. "The problem with this phenomenon is that the chromosome that won't recombine will degenerate: that's why most Y genes aren't functional," explains Keller. Nevertheless, this system grants its bearer every aspect that goes with masculinity.
Leo Tilmont
Based in Lausanne, Le Temps ("The Times") is one of Switzerland's top French-language dailies. It was founded in 1998 as a merger among various newspapers: Journal de Geneve, Gazette de Lausanne and Le Nouveau Quotidien.
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NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg talks with Ukrainian Defense Minister Olexiy Resnikov at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
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Welcome to Friday, where NATO leaders gather in Germany to speed up future military aid to Ukraine, Greta Thunberg wags her finger at Davos, and U.S. folk-rock legend David Crosby dies at 81. Meanwhile, in the wake of the arrest of Italy's most-wanted mafia boss, Worldcrunch takes you on a tour of international villains' secret hideouts and what was found in them.
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• Alec Baldwin to be charged with involuntary manslaughter: American actor Alec Baldwin will be charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter over the shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who was killed in 2021 on the set of the film Rust when he accidentally fired a prop gun.
• South Korea slum fire: Hundreds of people have had to be evacuated after a fire broke out in a shanty town in South Korea's capital, Seoul. There have been no reports of deaths or injuries, but around 60 homes have been destroyed. It took more than 900 firefighters and several helicopters five hours to put out the blaze.
• Google parent company to lay off 12,000: Google's parent company Alphabet has announced it is laying off 12,000 employees, just a day after competitor Microsoft said it would be parting with 10,000 workers. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai sent a staff memo explaining that said the company was facing "a different economic reality" than when it was created.
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"Germany, the embarrassing partner," titles German weekly magazine Stern, asking if the country, in this decisive phase of the war, can "still be relied upon." German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is facing mounting pressure to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine as talks between more than 50 countries are currently underway at the country's Ramstein air base to coordinate efforts to increase weapon supplies.
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Weird stuff, guns & money: Inside the hideouts of mob bosses and fugitive warlords
After the capture this week of Sicilian Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, police revealed some notable contents of two of his hideouts after 30 years on the run. There's a long history of discovering the secret lairs and bunkers of the world's Most Wanted bad guys.
💍 Expensive watches, perfumes, designer clothes and sex pills. A day after top Sicilian Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro was captured after 30 years on the run, police revealed some of the possessions found in the Palermo apartment where he'd been hiding out under a false name. By Wednesday, Italian daily La Stampa was reporting, police had found a second hideout near Messina Denaro's hometown in the Sicilian province of Trapani, with a secret vault hidden behind a closet, where jewelry, gold and other valuables were found.
🦛 Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar owned a handful of luxury properties, including the 5,500-acre Hacienda Nápoles estate in Puerto Triunfo, Colombia. When he was finally tracked down and shot to death by Colombian security forces in 1993, authorities got a close-up of the true extent of his possessions. The main complex included two swimming pools, a private airstrip and a race track for Escobar's collection of luxury cars. He also built a zoo to house animals including elephants, ostriches and, most famously, four hippos.
🖼️ The most infamous historical bunker, Adolf Hitler's führerbunker in Berlin, was almost destroyed after the war by East German authorities, who were concerned it would become a pilgrimage site for neo-Nazis. Photos taken after Soviet forces took control of the bunker in 1945 show the space looted and burned, including copies of news reports and a smashed painting — reportedly a 16th century work stolen from Milan. The remains of the bunker are now buried underneath a parking lot.
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"The time of the Wild West is over."
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