TY - JOUR
T1 - A new data of worker polymorphism in the ant genus Dorylus (Hymenoptera
T2 - Formicidae: Dorylinae)
AU - Eguchi, Katsuyuki
AU - Bui, Viet Tuan
AU - Oguri, Emiko
AU - Maruyama, Munetoshi
AU - Yamane, Seiki
N1 - Funding Information:
We wish to thank the Vietnam's National Foundation for Science and Technology Development (NAFOSTED) for supporting our project (approval no. 33/QD-HDQLQ ). We also thank Dr. Pham Van Luc (a former Director, Vietnam National Museum of Nature, Hanoi, Vietnam) and the authorities of Binh Chau-Phuoc Buu Nature Reserve and Bach Ma National Park for their giving every facility to K. Eguchi and Bui T.V. during the field survey, Prof. Noriaki Murakami (Tokyo Metropolitan Univ.) for his giving every facility to K. Eguchi's laboratory work, Prof. Taro Yamamoto (Nagasaki Univ.) for his helping K. Eguchi establish a molecular laboratory, and Mr. Barry Bolton (Isle of Wight, U.K.) for his valuable comments.
PY - 2014/3
Y1 - 2014/3
N2 - Recently, in southern and central Vietnam, foraging columns of D. orientalis which contained not only "typical" workers but also a few "atypical" workers were collected. The atypical worker mentioned above is characterized by a set of the following features: (1) head narrowed anteriorly, (2) median portion of clypeus strongly projecting anteriad, and (3) antenna 8-segmented. Sequences of the 658-base standard mitochondrial DNA barcoding region were completely identical between typical and atypical workers. Therefore, the condition observed was a case of worker polymorphism within a colony. The mode of polymorphism observed has the following interesting aspects: (1) workers are clearly subdivided into two series by a set of qualitative characters; (2) the "typical series" is numerically much more dominant than the "atypical series" (the latter occupied less than 1% of the whole of the workers collected); (3) a wider size variation was observed in the former (HW, 0.48-1.41. mm; ML, 0.42-1.12. mm) than in the latter (HW, 0.44-1.13. mm; ML, 0.35-0.79. mm); and (4) within the atypical series, smaller workers are numerically much dominant. Rareness of the workers belonging to the atypical series in foraging column as well as morphological differences between the two series suggests a certain possibility that the atypical series does not adapt to foraging but to other tasks in the colony's life history.
AB - Recently, in southern and central Vietnam, foraging columns of D. orientalis which contained not only "typical" workers but also a few "atypical" workers were collected. The atypical worker mentioned above is characterized by a set of the following features: (1) head narrowed anteriorly, (2) median portion of clypeus strongly projecting anteriad, and (3) antenna 8-segmented. Sequences of the 658-base standard mitochondrial DNA barcoding region were completely identical between typical and atypical workers. Therefore, the condition observed was a case of worker polymorphism within a colony. The mode of polymorphism observed has the following interesting aspects: (1) workers are clearly subdivided into two series by a set of qualitative characters; (2) the "typical series" is numerically much more dominant than the "atypical series" (the latter occupied less than 1% of the whole of the workers collected); (3) a wider size variation was observed in the former (HW, 0.48-1.41. mm; ML, 0.42-1.12. mm) than in the latter (HW, 0.44-1.13. mm; ML, 0.35-0.79. mm); and (4) within the atypical series, smaller workers are numerically much dominant. Rareness of the workers belonging to the atypical series in foraging column as well as morphological differences between the two series suggests a certain possibility that the atypical series does not adapt to foraging but to other tasks in the colony's life history.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.aspen.2013.09.004
DO - 10.1016/j.aspen.2013.09.004
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84886257716
VL - 17
SP - 31
EP - 36
JO - Journal of Asia-Pacific Entomology
JF - Journal of Asia-Pacific Entomology
SN - 1226-8615
IS - 1
ER -