Summary
The ant speciesLasius (Lasius) neglectus spec. nov. (van Loon et al., 1990) was sampled from its type locality in Budapest, Hungary for allozyme analysis at four marker loci.L. neglectus appeared to be monomorphic but different fromL. alienus at three loci. The fourth locus,Me, was found to be polymorphic inL. neglectus and was used to make a preliminary assessment of population viscosity, intranest relatedness, and mating structure. Allele frequencies turned out to be homogeneous across motherqueens, males and workers. Between sample sites, theMe allele frequencies of workers were more heterogeneous and some population viscosity could be detected. The mean intranest relatedness ofL. neglectus was found to be very low, both between workers and between workers and males, but no indications were found that queens are frequently inseminated more than once. The analysis of worker genotypes further showed a significant effect of inbreeding. The results are generally consistent with the observations about polygyny and intranidal mating reported byvan Loon et al. (1990). Some striking similarities betweenL. neglectus and the JapaneseL. sakagamii — the only other polygynousLasius s.s. known to science — are discussed.
Resume
Nous avons récolté des échantillons deLasius (Lasius) neglectus spec. nov. dans la localité type à Budapest, Hongrie, pour effectuer une analyse des allozymes. Nous avons étudié quatre loci. Trois loci deL. neglectus sont monomorphes et différents deL. alienus. L'autre locus, l'enzyme malique (Me), est polymorphe chezL. neglectus. Ce locus a été utilisé afin d'étudier la viscosité de population, le coefficient de parenté entre ouvrières du même nid et les modalités d'accouplement. Les fréquences d'allèles sont homogènes entre les reines, les mâles et les ouvrières. Les fréquences de génotypes chez les ouvrières sont plus hétérogènes entre les nids et on peut détecter une certaine viscosité de la population. Dans les nids deL. neglectus, le coefficient de parenté entre ouvrières et entre ouvrières et mâles est très faible. Les reines semblent n'être inséminées que par un seul mâle. L'analyse de génotypes des ouvrières indique aussi l'existence d'une certaine consanguinité. En général, les résultats correspondent avec les observations sur le terrain (polygynie et accouplement dans le nid) (voirvan Loon et al., 1990). Nous comparons dans la discussion la structure sociale deL. neglectus avec celle de l'unique autre espèce deLasius s.s. polygyne connue (L. sakagamii).
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Boomsma, J.J., Brouwer, A.H. & Van Loon, A.J. A new polygynousLasius species (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) from central Europe. Ins. Soc 37, 363–375 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02225998
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02225998