A super garden was found in Port Ash

A unique study carried out by entomologists from the University of Georgia led to the discovery of a supergene characteristic of fire ant colonies that determines whether a young ant queen will leave the colony in which she was born in order to establish a new colony of her own or she will join the number of queens in that colony

[Translation by Dr. Moshe Nachmani]

A unique study carried out by entomologists from the University of Georgia led to the discovery of a supergene characteristic of fire ant colonies that determines whether a young ant queen will leave the colony in which she was born in order to establish a new colony of her own or she will join the number of queens in that colony .

The researchers also found that ants were more aggressive towards queens that did not carry this supergene, a fact that caused the workers of the main colony to even kill them. This important finding paves the way for the development of new pest control methods that may be more effective in eradicating problematic fire ant colonies.

A single-kingdom nest and a multi-kingdom nest

"Understanding how fire ants behave is very important basic information," said researcher Ken Ross, a professor of entomology at the University of Georgia. "This information is key information in our ability to control the pest population and predict similarities between them." A supergene is defined as a collection of neighboring genes on a chromosome that have been inherited together due to a close genetic relationship between them. The study of these unique genes is important for understanding the reasons that cause differences between social structures of fire ants, mainly for controlling the strains and expanding the existing basic knowledge. The researchers focused on a young queen of fire ants embarking on a "marriage" flight. They compared the effect of the supergarden on two main types of social structures of fire ants: a monogyne nest, built by a queen building a new nest; and a multi-queen nest (monogyne), which is built by queens joining an existing nest.        

The researcher initially worked, together with his colleagues in the laboratory, with the aim of discovering an unusual example of genetically encoded differences in social organizations among strains of the fire ant of the type Solenopsis invicta. The next step was to understand how these genetic differences create complex behavioral and physiological changes among ants in a single-queen versus a multi-queen colony. The combination of this knowledge helps scientists better understand the patterns of development in the species, and increase the alternatives to combat invasive populations. The team of researchers formulated an experimental design that uses a collection of samples from two organs of fire ants - brain and ovary tissues - and from a full range of social chromosome genotypes and social structures among this species of fire ants.    

The innovative research combined diverse scientific methods, a fact that led to the sharing of means and sources that cross many research fields at the research institute. "The University of Georgia has been a very supportive environment for conducting this research," said researcher Brendan Hunt, professor of entomology. The research combined the preparation of samples for RNA sequencing and the use of computing resources to analyze the results.

Article Summary

The news about the study

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