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Birgit C Schlicksteiner - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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a dna and morphology based phylogenetic framework of the ant genus Lasius with hypotheses for the evolution of social parasitism and fungiculture
BMC Evolutionary Biology, 2008Co-Authors: Munetoshi Maruyama, Toshiharu Akino, Florian M Steiner, Rossiter H Crozier, Christian Stauffer, Birgit C SchlicksteinerAbstract:Background Ants of the genus Lasius are ecologically important and an important system for evolutionary research. Progress in evolutionary research has been hindered by the lack of a well-founded phylogeny of the subgenera, with three previous attempts disagreeing. Here we employed two mitochondrial genes (cytochrome c oxidase subunit I, 16S ribosomal RNA), comprising 1,265 bp, together with 64 morphological characters, to recover the phylogeny of Lasius by Bayesian and Maximum Parsimony inference after exploration of potential causes of phylogenetic distortion. We use the resulting framework to infer evolutionary pathways for social parasitism and fungiculture.
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a dna and morphology based phylogenetic framework of the ant genus Lasius with hypotheses for the evolution of social parasitism and fungiculture
BMC Evolutionary Biology, 2008Co-Authors: Munetoshi Maruyama, Toshiharu Akino, Florian M Steiner, Birgit C Schlicksteiner, Rossiter H Crozier, Christian StaufferAbstract:Ants of the genus Lasius are ecologically important and an important system for evolutionary research. Progress in evolutionary research has been hindered by the lack of a well-founded phylogeny of the subgenera, with three previous attempts disagreeing. Here we employed two mitochondrial genes (cytochrome c oxidase subunit I, 16S ribosomal RNA), comprising 1,265 bp, together with 64 morphological characters, to recover the phylogeny of Lasius by Bayesian and Maximum Parsimony inference after exploration of potential causes of phylogenetic distortion. We use the resulting framework to infer evolutionary pathways for social parasitism and fungiculture. We recovered two well supported major lineages. One includes Acanthomyops, AustroLasius, ChthonoLasius, and Lasius pallitarsis, which we confirm to represent a seventh subgenus, the other clade contains DendroLasius, and Lasius sensu stricto. The subgenus CautoLasius, displaying neither social parasitism nor fungiculture, probably belongs to the second clade, but its phylogenetic position is not resolved at the cutoff values of node support we apply. Possible causes for previous problems with reconstructing the Lasius phylogeny include use of other reconstruction techniques, possibly more prone to instabilities in some instances, and the inclusion of phylogenetically distorting characters. By establishing an updated phylogenetic framework, our study provides the basis for a later formal taxonomic revision of subgenera and for studying the evolution of various ecologically and sociobiologically relevant traits of Lasius, although there is need for future studies to include nuclear genes and additional samples from the Nearctic. Both social parasitism and fungiculture evolved twice in Lasius, once in each major lineage, which opens up new opportunities for comparative analyses. The repeated evolution of social parasitism has been established for other groups of ants, though not for temporary social parasitism as found in Lasius. For fungiculture, the independent emergence twice in a monophyletic group marks a novel scenario in ants. We present alternative hypotheses for the evolution of both traits, with one of each involving loss of the trait. Though less likely for both traits than later evolution without reversal, we consider reversal as sufficiently plausible to merit independent testing.
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phylogeny and bionomics of Lasius austriacus hymenoptera formicidae
Insectes Sociaux, 2004Co-Authors: Florian M Steiner, Birgit C Schlicksteiner, Stefan Schodl, Xavier Espadaler, Bernhard Seifert, Erhard Christian, Christian StaufferAbstract:Phylogenetic analysis based on sequence data of the mitochondrial COI gene confirms the species status of the recently described Lasius austriacus. The five haplotypes of L. austriacus do not cluster according to their geographic origin, indicating a recent gene flow among the populations. The molecular data corroborate the morphology based hypothesis that L. austriacus belongs to the Lasius (Lasius s.str.) brunneus group. The invasive species Lasius neglectus forms a sister taxon with L. turcicus, both next related to L. austriacus. Other phylogenetic relationships within the genus Lasius are in accordance with morphological data.
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Lasius austriacus sp n a central european ant related to the invasive species Lasius neglectus
Sociobiology, 2003Co-Authors: Birgit C Schlicksteiner, Florian M Steiner, Stefan Schodl, Bernhard SeifertAbstract:Lasius austriacus sp.n., a xerothermophilic ant with mainly subterranean life habits, is described. The new species is related to the pest ant L. neglectus Van Loon, Boomsma & Andrasfalvy 1990 and L. turcicus Santschi 1921. L. austriacus was found to be associated with the grass mealybug Euripersia europaea Newstead 1897. The presently known distribution range is restricted to Austria (three populations) and the Czech Republic (one population), the Czech population so far had erroneously been referred to as the only known L. neglectus population in a natural habitat in Europe. L. austriacus offers an opportunity to elucidate the evolution of the notorious pest species L. neglectus.
Simon Tragust - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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land cover and climate factors contribute to the prevalence of the ectoparasitic fungus laboulbenia formicarum in its invasive ant host Lasius neglectus
Fungal Ecology, 2021Co-Authors: Jerome M W Gippet, Theotime Colin, Julien Grangier, Fiona Winkler, Marjorie Haond, Adeline Dumet, Simon Tragust, Nathalie Mondy, Bernard KaufmannAbstract:Abstract Understanding the distribution of parasites is crucial for biodiversity conservation. Here, we studied the distribution of the ectoparasitic fungus Laboulbenia formicarum in native and invasive Lasius ants in a 2000 km2 area. We screened over 16,000 ant workers in 478 colonies of five different species. We found that Lab. formicarum was rare in native Lasius species but infected 58% of the colonies of the invasive species Las. neglectus. At landscape scale, Lab. formicarum presence could not be explained by geographic and genetic distances between Las. neglectus colonies but was associated with hotter and dryer climatic conditions and its prevalence in colonies increased with urbanization. Within infected colonies, fungal prevalence varied from 0 to 100 percent within meters and was negatively correlated with impervious ground cover. In a changing world, our findings emphasize the importance of land-use and climatic factors in shaping the distribution and prevalence of fungal parasites.
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Rapid increase of the parasitic fungus Laboulbenia formicarum in supercolonies of the invasive garden ant Lasius neglectus
Biological Invasions, 2015Co-Authors: Simon Tragust, Xavier Espadaler, Heike Feldhaar, Jes Søe PedersenAbstract:A key feature among invasive ant species is their ability to dominate vast areas by forming dense networks of connected nests in contrast to the smaller and discrete, spatially dispersed colonies of most social insects. However, it was recently proposed that such supercolonies are more vulnerable to infection by parasites and diseases as they would serve as large targets with high rates of transmission from nests to nest. We studied the invasive garden ant Lasius neglectus , a pest species currently spreading throughout Europe. Several populations are infected with an ectoparasitic fungus, Laboulbenia formicarum , itself an introduced species, yielding a new host–parasite relationship. Long-term monitoring of the prevalence and intensity of infection in two populations (supercolonies) over 4–10 years revealed epizootic spread of the parasite with a 14 % annual increase in prevalence until ca. 80 % of all ants were infected. In contrast, no other local ant species with discrete colonies carried the parasite, although a local species ( Lasius niger ) proved susceptible in a cross-infection experiment. These results support the hypothesis that supercolonies potentially face an important challenge from parasites and diseases, with interesting perspectives for biological control of such ant species.
Jan Zrzavý - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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phylogeny of Lasius ants based on mitochondrial dna and morphology and the evolution of social parasitism in the lasiini hymenoptera formicidae
Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 2004Co-Authors: Milan Janda, Dagmar Folkova, Jan ZrzavýAbstract:Abstract Phylogeny of ants of the tribe Lasiini (Lasius, Acanthomyops, Prenolepis, Euprenolepis, Paratrechina, PseudoLasius, and Myrmecocystus) was analysed using 81 morphological, ecological, and behavioural characters (for 41 species) and mitochondrial DNA sequences (COI, COII, tRNA-Leu; for 19 species). The free-living subgenus Lasius s. str. is paraphyletic with respect to the rest of genus; the traditional “genus” Acanthomyops should be considered a part of Lasius s. lat.; free-living subgenus CautoLasius is a member of the clade of socially parasitic Lasius ants (=ChtonoLasius + Acanthomyops + AustroLasius + DendroLasius). The tree topology is congruent with two alternative scenarios of origin of the temporary social parasitism: (i) a single origin of the parasitic strategy in a derived subclade of Lasius and a secondary loss of this trait in CautoLasius, (ii) a parallel origin of the social parasitism within the clade of hypogeic Lasius ants (in ChtonoLasius, and in Acanthomyops + DendroLasius + AustroLasius). Emery’s rule in the strict sense does not apply to this group because most parasites exploit any ecologically available, even phylogenetically distant host species. The parasitic strategy in Lasius could have originated from the aggressive interactions between cofounding queens during pleometric colony founding and/or from the secondary queen adoption.
Jes Søe Pedersen - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Rapid increase of the parasitic fungus Laboulbenia formicarum in supercolonies of the invasive garden ant Lasius neglectus
Biological Invasions, 2015Co-Authors: Simon Tragust, Xavier Espadaler, Heike Feldhaar, Jes Søe PedersenAbstract:A key feature among invasive ant species is their ability to dominate vast areas by forming dense networks of connected nests in contrast to the smaller and discrete, spatially dispersed colonies of most social insects. However, it was recently proposed that such supercolonies are more vulnerable to infection by parasites and diseases as they would serve as large targets with high rates of transmission from nests to nest. We studied the invasive garden ant Lasius neglectus , a pest species currently spreading throughout Europe. Several populations are infected with an ectoparasitic fungus, Laboulbenia formicarum , itself an introduced species, yielding a new host–parasite relationship. Long-term monitoring of the prevalence and intensity of infection in two populations (supercolonies) over 4–10 years revealed epizootic spread of the parasite with a 14 % annual increase in prevalence until ca. 80 % of all ants were infected. In contrast, no other local ant species with discrete colonies carried the parasite, although a local species ( Lasius niger ) proved susceptible in a cross-infection experiment. These results support the hypothesis that supercolonies potentially face an important challenge from parasites and diseases, with interesting perspectives for biological control of such ant species.
Florian M Steiner - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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a dna and morphology based phylogenetic framework of the ant genus Lasius with hypotheses for the evolution of social parasitism and fungiculture
BMC Evolutionary Biology, 2008Co-Authors: Munetoshi Maruyama, Toshiharu Akino, Florian M Steiner, Rossiter H Crozier, Christian Stauffer, Birgit C SchlicksteinerAbstract:Background Ants of the genus Lasius are ecologically important and an important system for evolutionary research. Progress in evolutionary research has been hindered by the lack of a well-founded phylogeny of the subgenera, with three previous attempts disagreeing. Here we employed two mitochondrial genes (cytochrome c oxidase subunit I, 16S ribosomal RNA), comprising 1,265 bp, together with 64 morphological characters, to recover the phylogeny of Lasius by Bayesian and Maximum Parsimony inference after exploration of potential causes of phylogenetic distortion. We use the resulting framework to infer evolutionary pathways for social parasitism and fungiculture.
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a dna and morphology based phylogenetic framework of the ant genus Lasius with hypotheses for the evolution of social parasitism and fungiculture
BMC Evolutionary Biology, 2008Co-Authors: Munetoshi Maruyama, Toshiharu Akino, Florian M Steiner, Birgit C Schlicksteiner, Rossiter H Crozier, Christian StaufferAbstract:Ants of the genus Lasius are ecologically important and an important system for evolutionary research. Progress in evolutionary research has been hindered by the lack of a well-founded phylogeny of the subgenera, with three previous attempts disagreeing. Here we employed two mitochondrial genes (cytochrome c oxidase subunit I, 16S ribosomal RNA), comprising 1,265 bp, together with 64 morphological characters, to recover the phylogeny of Lasius by Bayesian and Maximum Parsimony inference after exploration of potential causes of phylogenetic distortion. We use the resulting framework to infer evolutionary pathways for social parasitism and fungiculture. We recovered two well supported major lineages. One includes Acanthomyops, AustroLasius, ChthonoLasius, and Lasius pallitarsis, which we confirm to represent a seventh subgenus, the other clade contains DendroLasius, and Lasius sensu stricto. The subgenus CautoLasius, displaying neither social parasitism nor fungiculture, probably belongs to the second clade, but its phylogenetic position is not resolved at the cutoff values of node support we apply. Possible causes for previous problems with reconstructing the Lasius phylogeny include use of other reconstruction techniques, possibly more prone to instabilities in some instances, and the inclusion of phylogenetically distorting characters. By establishing an updated phylogenetic framework, our study provides the basis for a later formal taxonomic revision of subgenera and for studying the evolution of various ecologically and sociobiologically relevant traits of Lasius, although there is need for future studies to include nuclear genes and additional samples from the Nearctic. Both social parasitism and fungiculture evolved twice in Lasius, once in each major lineage, which opens up new opportunities for comparative analyses. The repeated evolution of social parasitism has been established for other groups of ants, though not for temporary social parasitism as found in Lasius. For fungiculture, the independent emergence twice in a monophyletic group marks a novel scenario in ants. We present alternative hypotheses for the evolution of both traits, with one of each involving loss of the trait. Though less likely for both traits than later evolution without reversal, we consider reversal as sufficiently plausible to merit independent testing.
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phylogeny and bionomics of Lasius austriacus hymenoptera formicidae
Insectes Sociaux, 2004Co-Authors: Florian M Steiner, Birgit C Schlicksteiner, Stefan Schodl, Xavier Espadaler, Bernhard Seifert, Erhard Christian, Christian StaufferAbstract:Phylogenetic analysis based on sequence data of the mitochondrial COI gene confirms the species status of the recently described Lasius austriacus. The five haplotypes of L. austriacus do not cluster according to their geographic origin, indicating a recent gene flow among the populations. The molecular data corroborate the morphology based hypothesis that L. austriacus belongs to the Lasius (Lasius s.str.) brunneus group. The invasive species Lasius neglectus forms a sister taxon with L. turcicus, both next related to L. austriacus. Other phylogenetic relationships within the genus Lasius are in accordance with morphological data.
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Lasius austriacus sp n a central european ant related to the invasive species Lasius neglectus
Sociobiology, 2003Co-Authors: Birgit C Schlicksteiner, Florian M Steiner, Stefan Schodl, Bernhard SeifertAbstract:Lasius austriacus sp.n., a xerothermophilic ant with mainly subterranean life habits, is described. The new species is related to the pest ant L. neglectus Van Loon, Boomsma & Andrasfalvy 1990 and L. turcicus Santschi 1921. L. austriacus was found to be associated with the grass mealybug Euripersia europaea Newstead 1897. The presently known distribution range is restricted to Austria (three populations) and the Czech Republic (one population), the Czech population so far had erroneously been referred to as the only known L. neglectus population in a natural habitat in Europe. L. austriacus offers an opportunity to elucidate the evolution of the notorious pest species L. neglectus.
