Sagehen Creek Field Station

18 Aug, 01 PM - 22 Aug, 01 PM

I will be visiting the Sagehen Creek Reserve to look for socially parasitic ant colonies of the genus Formica. These colonies have been recorded within a matrix of other parasitic ant colonies at Sagehen and are unique in their evolutionary state of this parasitic behavior. I plan to establish Sagehen as one of my field sites for my PhD dissertation. My current research will involve colony observations, collection of workers from nests for genetic and chemical analysis, and pitfall trap surveys that will measure species diversity and host abundance in a parasite's range. Complex social societies must be built upon some level of cooperation. Within eusocial hymenoptera, cooperation is governed by intense kin selective pressures that favor the coexistence of highly related individuals within a colony in order for altruistim to occur most efficiently. Despite the success this evolutionary strategy has had in hymenoptera, most notably the ants, certain behavioral defects have evolved in tandem and have lead to the exploitation of colony labor by select workers as they hack the very altruism that categorizes their species. Social parasitism in ants can be categorized as either facultative or obligate. Facultative social parasites represent a unique middle ground in the evolutionary trajectory of this behavioral adaptation where some populations are found to exist via parasitism while others do not. Formica aserva is a dulotic or "slave-making" form of parasitic ant consisting of populations that show plasticity in parasitic behavior and host specification unlike their obligate counterparts. In order to explain this plasticity, I will test predictions of Emery's Rule which states that social parasites and their hosts are close relatives. This rule can be tested based on two different inferences of common ancestry in ants: genes and cuticular hydrocarbon profiles; the mechanisms with which ants and other eusocial animals maintain highly organized, altruistic societies.

Visit #47145 @Sagehen Creek Field Station

Approved

Under Project # 33673 | Research

Chemical and genetic components of host specificity

graduate_student - University of California, Berkeley

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Kelsey Scheckel Aug 18 - 22, 2016 (5 days)

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Day Use (suggested) 1 Aug 18 - 22, 2016