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Ants are one of the most successful families of insects in evolution. More than 8,000 species of ants are described, belonging to 297 genera and 11 subfamilies. It is estimated that ~20% of the animal biomass in the Amazon forest is constituted by ants. They are well known to entomologists and laymen alike for their highly developed social behavior. It is common knowledge that in the same ant species, different castes (or morphs) exist that display striking physical (size, shape), physiological (lifespan, reproductive potential), and behavioral differences. The different castes are assigned different roles within the colony, resulting in a very effective division of labor, possibly responsible for the evolutionary success of these organisms.
Learn more about castes and division of labor in ant society
From the perspective of a geneticist, the most interesting aspect of ant biology is that the caste to which an ant will belong is not predetermined in the majority of species. Any egg can develop, into an adult worker or a queen (for example) depending on environmental cues. At the molecular level, this implies that both developmental trajectories are specified in the genome, and that which trajectory is followed and maintained throughout adult life must be determined by mechanisms other than changes in the DNA sequence. As this is the very definition of epigenetics, we reasoned that establishing ants as a model organism would greatly benefit epigenetics research in other organisms, including humans.
Learn more about ants and epigenetics
One fascinating, yet puzzling aspect of ant biology is the difference in life span between the different castes. Depending on the species, queens can live for as long as 10-30 years, while workers typically have much shorter life spans, in the order of few months to few years. Because queen and workers have the same genomic DNA, the determinants for life span must be environmental in origin and epigenetic in mechanism. We hope to discover them and extend these findings to other organisms!
Learn more about ants and aging research
For the initial studies we chose two particular ant species, Camponotus floridanus and Harpegnathos saltator. These two species, are a good sample of the range of social organizations found in ants. On one extreme, Camponotus is organized in large colonies, with very sharp division of labor and different specialized sub-types of workers; on the other hand, Harpegnathos ants live in much smaller colonies and display more flexibility in their reproductive potential and social organization. In a simplistic way one could describe Camponotus as possessing a very well developed and sophisticated social system, while Harpegnathos’s being a more primitive and rudimentary social system. We hope to learn the genetic and epigenetic basis of ant behavior by comparing the genome and epigenome of these two species.
Learn more about C. floridanus and H. saltator
Our Real Epigenetic Studies ... Ants:
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