Molecular advances in understanding social insect population structure

Social insects present many phenomena seen in all organisms but in more extreme forms and with larger sample sizes than those observable in most natural populations of vertebrates. Microsatellites are proving very much more informative than allozymes for the analysis of population biological problems, and prolifically polymorphic markers are fairly readily developed. In addition, the male-haploid genetic system of many social insects facilitates genetic analysis. The ability to amplify DNA from sperm stored in a female's sperm storage device enables the determination of mating types long after the death of the short-lived males, in addition to information on the degree of mixing of sperm from different males. Mitochondrial (mt) DNA sequences are also proving important, not only in phylogenetic studies but also in molecular population genetics, as a tracer of female movements. Mitochondrial markers have definitively shown the movement of females between colonies, challenging models giving exclusive primacy to kin selection as the explanation for multi-queen colonies, in Australian meat ants, Iridomyrmex purpureus, and the arid-zone queenless ant Rhytidoponera sp. 12. Microsatellite and mtDNA variation are being studied in Camponotus consobrinus sugar ants, showing an unexpected diversity of complexity in colony structure, and microsatellites have shown that transfer of ants between nests of the weaver ant Polyrhachis doddi must be slight, despite an apparent lack of hostility.