Fundamental difference in life history traits of two species of Cataglyphis ants.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The two sympatric species of Tunisian desert ants, Cataglyphis bicolor and C. mauritanica, do not exhibit any differences in their foraging ecology, e.g. in food preferences and in their spatial and temporal activity patterns. Here we show that instead the two species markedly differ in their life histories.

Results

We analysed mtDNA of specimens that were collected along a 250-km transect. C. bicolor exhibited a genetically unstructured population (with the genetic and geographic distances among colonies not being correlated). On the contrary the populations of the polygynous C. mauritanica were clearly structured, i.e. exhibited a strong correlation between genetic and geographic distances. This difference is in accordance with large queen dispersal distances du

SUBMITTER: Knaden M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1716760 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature