{"100561":{"#nid":"100561","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Clones of Crazy Ant Queens Fuel Global Invasion","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWired Science\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nBy Dave Mosher\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe worldwide invasion of Longhorn crazy ants appears to rely on a reproductive trick that allows for incest without the problems of inbreeding.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EIn the early stages of invasion, the average ant queen may have no choice but to mate with a male relative. But when that happens, her eggs can hatch as non-working males instead of workers.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWithout workers, the colony quickly starves to death. So longhorn crazy ant queens avoid the problem by producing female offspring who are clones of themselves, and sons who are genetically unrelated clones of their fathers.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022It\u0027s an incredibly bizarre system,\u0022 said study co-author Michael Goodisman, a Georgia Institute of Technology sociobiologist who described the trick Feb. 2 in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. \u0022A queen produces males that are completely unrelated to her, that have none of her genetic material.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ELonghorn crazy ants, or Paratrechina longicornis, are so widespread that scientists don\u00e2\u0080\u0099t even know where they first came from. They form series of connected colonies, called  \u0022supercolonies,\u0022 that greatly disrupt ecosystems they invade, including human farms and homes.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ETo discover how crazy ant queens deal with a shortage of mates, Goodisman\u0027s team formed 21 laboratory colonies, each with one queen and some workers. After three months, the researchers collected pupae of workers, males and queens, then analyzed their DNA.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWorkers had one set of genes each from both mother and father, as normal. But females were exact copies of their queen mother, while males were clones of their fathers.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EBecause both the queens\u00e2\u0080\u0099 offspring are genetically unrelated, they can mate with one another without the consequences of inbreeding.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022It\u0027s cheating, in a genetic sense, but this weird system allows [crazy ants] to overcome severe restrictions,\u0022 said evolutionary geneticist J\u00c3\u00bcrgen Gadau of Arizona State University, who wasn\u00e2\u0080\u0099t involved in the study.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe cellular mechanisms of this phenomenon are unknown. Goodisman and Gadua suspect that female copies of genes are destroyed in eggs originally destined to be workers. But however it happens, it appears to be fantastically useful.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022It\u0027s a way to skirt the deleterious effects of inbreeding and spread all over the world,\u0022 said entomologist Kenneth Ross of the University of Georgia, who was not involved in the study.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"The worldwide invasion of Longhorn crazy ants appears to rely on a reproductive trick that allows for incest without the problems of inbreeding.\n\nIn the early stages of invasion, the average ant queen may have no choice but to mate with a male relative. But when that happens, her eggs can hatch as non-working males instead of workers.","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Clones of Crazy Ant Queens Fuel Global Invasion"}],"uid":"27245","created_gmt":"2011-02-15 01:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:11:09","author":"Troy Hilley","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2011-02-15T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2011-02-15T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"100571":{"id":"100571","type":"image","title":"Michael Goodisman","body":null,"created":"1449178159","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:29:19","changed":"1475894717","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:45:17"}},"media_ids":["100571"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.biology.gatech.edu\/","title":"School of Biology"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.biology.gatech.edu\/people\/michael-goodisman\/","title":"Michael Goodisman"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/wiredscience\/2011\/02\/crazy-ants-cloning\/","title":"Article"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/wiredscience\/","title":"Wired Science"}],"groups":[{"id":"1275","name":"School of Biological Sciences"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESchool of Biology\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBiology\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:admin@biology.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EContact School of Biology\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404-894-3700\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["admin@biology.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}