Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

The bacterial endosymbiont Wolbachia increases reproductive investment and accelerates the life cycle of ant colonies

View ORCID ProfileRohini Singh, Timothy A. Linksvayer
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/574921
Rohini Singh
Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Rohini Singh
  • For correspondence: srohini@sas.upenn.edu
Timothy A. Linksvayer
Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Supplementary material
  • Preview PDF
Loading

Abstract

Wolbachia is a widespread group of maternally-transmitted endosymbiotic bacteria that often manipulates the reproductive strategy and life history of its solitary hosts to enhance its own transmission. Wolbachia also commonly infects eusocial insects such as ants, although the effects of infection on social organisms remain largely unknown. We tested the effects of infection on colony-level reproduction and life history traits in the invasive pharaoh ant, Monomorium pharaonis. First we compared the reproductive investment of infected and uninfected colonies with queens of three discrete ages, and we found that infected colonies had increased reproductive investment. Next, we compared the long-term growth and reproduction of infected and uninfected colonies across their life cycle, and we found that infected colonies had increased colony-level growth and early colony reproduction. These colony-level effects of Wolbachia infection seem to result because of a ‘live fast, die young’ life history strategy of infected queens. Such accelerated colony life cycle is likely beneficial for both the host and the symbiont and may have contributed to success of the highly invasive pharaoh ant.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted March 12, 2019.
Download PDF

Supplementary Material

Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
The bacterial endosymbiont Wolbachia increases reproductive investment and accelerates the life cycle of ant colonies
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
The bacterial endosymbiont Wolbachia increases reproductive investment and accelerates the life cycle of ant colonies
Rohini Singh, Timothy A. Linksvayer
bioRxiv 574921; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/574921
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo LinkedIn logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
The bacterial endosymbiont Wolbachia increases reproductive investment and accelerates the life cycle of ant colonies
Rohini Singh, Timothy A. Linksvayer
bioRxiv 574921; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/574921

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Evolutionary Biology
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (3579)
  • Biochemistry (7534)
  • Bioengineering (5488)
  • Bioinformatics (20709)
  • Biophysics (10264)
  • Cancer Biology (7941)
  • Cell Biology (11595)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (6575)
  • Ecology (10150)
  • Epidemiology (2065)
  • Evolutionary Biology (13565)
  • Genetics (9504)
  • Genomics (12800)
  • Immunology (7891)
  • Microbiology (19471)
  • Molecular Biology (7621)
  • Neuroscience (41931)
  • Paleontology (307)
  • Pathology (1253)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (2182)
  • Physiology (3254)
  • Plant Biology (7017)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1291)
  • Synthetic Biology (1944)
  • Systems Biology (5411)
  • Zoology (1109)