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July 2003 - June 2007
August 2000 - June 2003
July 1995 - July 2000
Publications
Publications (119)
In this study we test whether Argentine ants (Linepithema humile) progressively reduce their response to a salient stimulus (alarm pheromone) with increased exposure over time. First, we used a two-chamber olfactometer to demonstrate three focal behaviors of Argentine ants that indicate an alarmed state in response to conspecific alarm pheromone an...
[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0236086.].
South American fire ant decapitating flies in the genus Pseudacteon (Diptera: Phoridae) are potential biocontrol agents of the invasive fire ants Solenopsis invicta and S. richteri in the United States and other regions of the world due to their high host specificity and the direct and indirect damage to their host ants. Despite their importance an...
The evolution of pre-zygotic reproductive isolation is a key step in the process of speciation. In many organisms, particularly insects, chemical labels are used as pheromones for species-specific mate recognition. Although an enormous body of knowledge exists regarding the patterns of pheromone chemical ecology, much less is known about the evolut...
Thermal phenotypic plasticity, otherwise known as acclimation, plays an essential role in how organisms respond to short‐term temperature changes. Plasticity buffers the impact of harmful temperature changes; therefore, understanding variation in plasticity in natural populations is crucial for understanding how species will respond to the changing...
Ecological impacts associated with ant introductions have received considerable attention, but most studies that report on these impacts contrast species assemblages between invaded and uninvaded sites. Given the low inferential power of this type of space-for-time comparison, alternative approaches are needed to evaluate claims that ant invasions...
Biological invasions can be influenced by trait variation in the invader, such as behavioural traits and ecological factors, such as variation in pathogen pressure. High-throughput nucleotide sequencing has increased our capacity to investigate the genomic basis of the functional changes associated with biological invasions. Here, we used RNA-seque...
Cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs), the dominant fraction of the insects’ epicuticle and the primary barrier to desiccation, form the basis for a wide range of chemical signaling systems. In eusocial insects, CHCs are key mediators of nestmate recognition, and colony identity appears to be maintained through a uniform CHC profile. In the unicolonial Arg...
Host–parasite associations facilitate the action of reciprocal selection and can drive rapid evolutionary change. When multiple host species are available to a single parasite, parallel specialization on different hosts may promote the action of diversifying natural selection and divergence via host race formation. Here, we examine a population of...
1.Once established in new areas, introduced species may exhibit changes in their biology due to phenotypic plasticity, novel selection pressures and genetic drift. Moreover, the introduction process itself has been hypothesised to act as a selective filter for traits that promote invasiveness. 2.We tested the hypothesis that behaviours thought to p...
The western honey bee, Apis mellifera, is an enormously influential pollinator in both natural and managed ecosystems. In North America, this species has been introduced numerous times from a variety of different source populations in Europe and Africa. Since then, feral populations have expanded into many different environments across their broad...
The western honey bee, Apis mellifera, provides critical pollination services to agricultural crops worldwide. However, despite substantial interest and prior investigation, the early evolution and subsequent diversification of this important pollinator remain uncertain. The primary hypotheses place the origin of A. mellifera in either Asia or Afri...
Myrmecophiles (i.e. organisms that associate with ants) use a variety of ecological niches and employ different strategies to survive encounters with ants. Because ants are typically excellent defenders, myrmecophiles may choose moments of weakness to take advantage of their ant associates. This hypothesis was studied in the rove beetle, Myrmedonot...
Chemical recognition systems are crucial for maintaining the unity of social insect colonies. It has been proposed that colonies form a common chemical signature, called the gestalt odor, which is used to distinguish colony members and non-members. This chemical integration is achieved actively through social interactions such as trophallaxis and a...
Parasitoids often use complex cues to identify suitable hosts in their environment. Phorid fly parasitoids that develop on one or a few host species often use multiple cues, ranging from general to highly specific, to home in on an appropriate host. Here, we describe the hierarchy of cues that Pseudacteon phorid flies use to identify Azteca ant hos...
Highly social ants, bees and wasps employ sophisticated recognition systems to identify colony members and deny foreign individuals access to their nest. For ants, cuticular hydrocarbons serve as the labels used to ascertain nest membership. Social parasites, however, are capable of breaking the recognition code so that they can thrive unopposed wi...
NMDS (Nonmetric multi-dimensional scaling) plot of chemical profiles from enslaved and free-living Formica altipetens workers.
Plotted points are based on the relative proportions of 14 chemical peaks detected in cuticular hydrocarbon profiles of individual F. altipetens workers from enslaved colonies (Ens; red triangles) or free-living colonies (F...
Areas for the 14 chemical peaks analyzed across individuals sampled.
(XLS)
Raw behavioral data set including presence/absence of aggression for each trial conducted.
(XLSX)
Pooled chemical profile of 20 free-living Formica workers from 10 different colonies.
(TIF)
Additional analyses of microsatellite data collected from enslaved and free-living Formica and whole population genetic data and outcome of HWE and LD analyses.
(DOC)
Background/Question/Methods
The aggressive arboreal ant, Azteca sericeasur, ubiquitous over the New World Tropics, has been shown to act as an effective biological control agent in coffee agroecosystems. However, a suite of three species of Pseudacteon genus phorid fly limit the ability of A. sericeasur to prey on coffee herbivores. Phorid fly pa...
A central goal of ecology is to understand the mechanisms behind variation in the abundance of species. Food web theory predicts higher biomass for animals at lower trophic levels. However, some high trophic level species may reach great abundance via highly efficient foraging behaviors. We evaluated ecological and behavioral traits of the giant tr...
Cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) are waxy substances on the cuticles of most insects, which protect them from microbes, desiccation, and other environmental risks. The CHCs are also used broadly in insect communication, and can be a valuable phenotype for taxonomic analyses. However, collecting CHCs in the field is often difficult because the appropri...
As a part of a social community, ant workers must be able to identify juveniles or brood to provide care for them. It has been proposed that ant brood produce a 'brood pheromone', a chemical or combination of chemicals that elicit a brood-specific behavioral response in workers. Knowing that cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) are commonly used for speci...
The endosymbiont Wolbachia infects at least 70% of examined arthropod species, causing a range of effects including cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI). Through CI, the high costs of hybridization may cause divergent selection on the recognition traits of carriers of incompatible strains. However, we still have very limited knowledge of Wolbachia’s ef...
The Colorado potato beetle, Leptinotarsa decemlineataSay (Coleoptera: Chrysamelidae) is one of the most successful insect pests in agriculture. However, its evolutionary origins as an insect pest of potato remain unclear, as different geographic beetle populations vary phenotypically in host plant affinity, cold tolerance, and behavior. From the be...
Hamilton is probably best known for his seminal work demonstrating the role of kin selection in social evolution. His work made it clear that, for individuals to direct their altruistic behaviours towards appropriate recipients (kin), mechanisms must exist for kin recognition. In the social insects, colonies are typically comprised of kin, and colo...
The worldwide resurgence of bed bugs has recently created urban pest challenges in California. Regardless of information source — newspaper, Internet, television, university or government — the message is the same: bed bugs are back, and with a vengeance. Until recently, the pest’s longstanding rarity and a historical reliance on pesticide-based ma...
Genomes of eusocial insects code for dramatic examples of phenotypic plasticity and social organization. We compared the genomes of seven ants, the honeybee, and various solitary insects to examine whether eusocial lineages share distinct features of genomic organization. Each ant lineage contains ~4,000 novel genes, but only 64 of these genes are...
Social organisms rank among the most abundant and ecologically dominant species on Earth, in part due to exclusive recognition systems that allow cooperators to be distinguished from exploiters. Exploiters, such as social parasites, manipulate their hosts' recognition systems, whereas cooperators are expected to minimize interference with their par...
Summary of GLMM results for nestmate and non-nestmate behavioral assays for the different pairings, with presence of aggression defined as behavioral scores 3–5. The reported p-values are for comparisons between the full model, with observation category (whether nestmate or non-nestmate) as a fixed effect and chemotype combination and colony pair n...
The Argentine ant (Linepithema humile) is recognized as one of the world's most damaging invasive species. One reason for the ecological dominance of introduced Argentine ant populations is their ability to dominate food and habitat resources through the rapid mobilization and recruitment of thousands of workers. More than 30 years ago, studies sho...
Cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) are important for communication amongst insects, especially ants. Ants typically acquire a common set of CHC cues, a gestalt odor, when sharing a nest. However, this process is not well-understood in nests shared by several species. We investigated the cuticular hydrocarbon profiles of three species living within a sin...
Trail-following bioassay setup to test the continuous trailing response of workers. Dolichodial/iridomyrmecin mixture (MDI) plus (Z)-9-hexadecenal, MDI only, and (Z)-9-hexadecenal only were tested on the trail. The S-shaped curve was drawn on a retangular filter paper (9×17 cm) with a circlular template of 5.5-cm diameter. The side of the filter pa...
Here, we describe a novel method for the extraction of insect cuticular hydrocarbons using silica gel, herein referred to as "silica-rubbing". This method permits the selective sampling of external hydrocarbons from insect cuticle surfaces for subsequent analysis using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The cuticular hydrocarbons are fir...
Most flowering plants establish mutualistic associations with insect pollinators to facilitate sexual reproduction. However, the evolutionary processes that gave rise to these associations remain poorly understood. We reconstructed the times of divergence, diversification patterns, and interaction networks of a diverse group of specialized orchids...
Eusocial species exhibit pronounced division of labor, most notably between reproductive and non-reproductive castes, but also within non-reproductive castes via morphological specialization and temporal polyethism. For species with distinct worker and queen castes, age-related differences in behavior among workers (e.g. within-nest tasks versus fo...
Social insect cuticular hydrocarbon (CHC) mixtures are among the most complex chemical cues known and are important in nest-mate, caste and species recognition. Despite our growing knowledge of the nature of these cues, we have very little insight into how social insects actually perceive and discriminate among these chemicals. In this study, we us...
Social insects rank among the most abundant and influential terrestrial organisms. The key to their success is their ability to form tightly knit social groups that perform work cooperatively, and effectively exclude non-members from the colony. An extensive body of research, both empirical and theoretical, has explored how optimal acceptance thres...
Ants are some of the most abundant and familiar animals on Earth, and they play vital roles in most terrestrial ecosystems. Although all ants are eusocial, and display a variety of complex and fascinating behaviors, few genomic resources exist for them. Here, we report the draft genome sequence of a particularly widespread and well-studied species,...
We report the draft genome sequence of the red harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex barbatus. The genome was sequenced using 454 pyrosequencing, and the current assembly and annotation were completed in less than 1 y. Analyses of conserved gene groups (more than 1,200 manually annotated genes to date) suggest a high-quality assembly and annotation comparabl...
Table S1 List of insect specific proteins (excel file).
Table S5 Name and classification of genes expressed in the Hypopharyngeal gland (excel file).
Table S2 Functional characteristics of insect specific proteins (excel file).
Table S3 Taxonomically restricted genes with paralogs (parent genes) that show wide conservation (excel file).
Table S6 List of candidate taxonomically restricted genes involved in eusocial evolution (excel file).
Table S4 Table showing the results from an analysis of the relationship between homology status and pattern of gene expression with different cut-off p-values for significance.
Table S7 List of manual EST alignments to gene predictions (excel file).
Arising from M. A. Nowak, C. E. Tarnita & E. O. Wilson 466, 1057-1062 (2010); Nowak et al. reply. Nowak et al. argue that inclusive fitness theory has been of little value in explaining the natural world, and that it has led to negligible progress in explaining the evolution of eusociality. However, we believe that their arguments are based upon a...
Studies have shown that taxonomically restricted genes are significant in number and important for the evolution of lineage specific traits. Social insects have gained many novel morphological and behavioral traits relative to their solitary ancestors. The task repertoire of an advanced social insect, for example, can be 40-50 tasks, about twice th...
Leaf-cutter ants are one of the most important herbivorous insects in the Neotropics, harvesting vast quantities of fresh leaf material. The ants use leaves to cultivate a fungus that serves as the colony's primary food source. This obligate ant-fungus mutualism is one of the few occurrences of farming by non-humans and likely facilitated the forma...
Nestmate recognition is a ubiquitous phenomenon in social insects as a means to prevent undesired individuals from entering to the rich nest resources. Social insects often use cuticular hydrocarbon odor cues as colony-specific signature, and they are believed to learn the chemical signatures that identify nestmates through social experiences. One...
Parabiosis is the only ant-ant nesting symbiosis to be considered as a mutualism. This unique nesting relationship involves shared nest space and foraging trails between two social insect species, usually of different subfamilies. We examined the nestmate recognition behaviors of two reputedly obligate parabiotic partners; Camponotus femoratus and...
Male orchid bees collect volatiles, from both floral and non-floral sources, that they expose as pheromone analogues (perfumes) during courtship display. The chemical profile of these perfumes, which includes terpenes and aromatic compounds, is both species-specific and divergent among closely related lineages. Thus, fragrance composition is though...
Social insects maintain colony cohesion by recognizing and, if necessary, discriminating against conspecifics that are not part of the colony. This recognition ability is encoded by a complex mixture of cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs), although it is largely unclear how social insects interpret such a multifaceted signal. CHC profiles often contain s...
The early phases of biological invasions are poorly understood. In particular, during the introduction, establishment, and possible lag phases, it is unclear to what extent evolution must take place for an introduced species to transition from established to expanding. In this study, we highlight three disparate data sources that can provide insigh...
Population bottlenecks may result in the loss of genetic diversity, with potentially negative consequences for species of
interest in conservation biology, including rare species, invasive species and biological control agents. We examined mtDNA
sequence data and four variable microsatellite loci (SSRs) in the melaleuca psyllid Boreioglycaspis mela...
Ants are among the most damaging invasive species, and their success frequently arises from the widespread cooperation displayed by introduced populations, often across hundreds of kilometers. Previous studies of the invasive Argentine ant (Linepithema humile) have shown that introduced populations on different continents each contain a single, vas...
In recent decades, a growing number of studies have addressed connections between ecological and evolutionary concepts in biologic invasions. These connections may be crucial for understanding the processes underlying invaders’ success. However, the extent to which scientists have worked on the integration of the ecology and evolution of invasive p...
Predicting which species will invade and which areas will be invaded are primary goals of the study of biological invasions. Moving beyond the single species approach and investigating patterns of ant species movement into new areas, biogeographic patterns of invasion, and systematic perspectives on the evolutionary correlates of success will bring...
Ants form highly social and cooperative colonies that compete, and often fight, against other such colonies, both intra- and interspecifically. Some invasive ants take sociality to an extreme, forming geographically massive 'supercolonies' across thousands of kilometres. The success of social insects generally, as well as invasive ants in particula...