''Ectatomma parasiticum'' is a

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

ant Ants are Eusociality, eusocial insects of the Family (biology), family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the Taxonomy (biology), order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from Vespoidea, vespoid wasp ancestors in the Cre ...

in the

subfamily In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end botanical subfamily names with "-oideae", and zo ...

Ectatomminae Ectatomminae is a subfamily of ants in the poneromorph subfamilies group containing four extant and three extinct genera in two tribes. The subfamily was described in 2003 when Barry Bolton divided the Ponerinae Ponerinae, the ponerine a ...

. Known from

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

, the species is a social parasite of the related species ''

Ectatomma tuberculatum ''Ectatomma tuberculatum'', known in Qʼeqchiʼ as the kelep, is a Neotropical species of ant in the subfamily Ectatomminae. Common in the Neotropics, the species is found from Mexico to Argentina. It is a host A host is a person responsib ...

''. It is the only parasitic species described in the

subfamily, and among the rare

inquiline In zoology, an inquiline (from Latin ''inquilinus'', "lodger" or "tenant") is an animal that lives commensally in the nest, burrow, or dwelling place of an animal of another species. For example, some organisms, such as insects, may live in the ...

s from the

tropics The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the equator, where the sun may shine directly overhead. This contrasts with the temperate or polar regions of Earth, where the Sun can never be directly overhead. This is because of Earth's ax ...

Parasitism

''Ectatomma parasiticum'' shares several life-history traits with other workerless inquiline ants: rarity, local distribution, variation in abundance, limited dispersal, intracolonial mating, queen miniaturization, morphological similarity with its

host A host is a person responsible for guests at an event or for providing hospitality during it. Host may also refer to: Places * Host, Pennsylvania, a village in Berks County * Host Island, in the Wilhelm Archipelago, Antarctica People * ...

, and quasiexclusive production of sexuals. Some of these parasitic traits, the polygynous population of the host, and the association between sibling species are arguments which may support the hypothesis of

sympatric speciation Sympatric speciation is the evolution of a new species from a surviving Common descent, ancestral species while both continue to inhabit the same geographic region. In evolutionary biology and biogeography, ''sympatric'' and ''sympatry'' are ter ...

. Despite a possible recent

divergence In vector calculus, divergence is a vector operator that operates on a vector field, producing a scalar field giving the rate that the vector field alters the volume in an infinitesimal neighborhood of each point. (In 2D this "volume" refers to ...

of the social parasite from its host, ''E. parasiticum'' can be discriminated by its host, and then potentially rejected. Nevertheless, most parasites elicited interest and attractiveness from the host, probably because of their peculiar chemical profile (a weak chemical signature) and/or their reproductive status. Fénéron ''et al.'' (2013) suggested that ''E. parasiticum'' could have conserved from its host sibling species the queen-specific substances that produce attracting and settling effect on workers, then making the exploitation of the host easier. However, recognition in ants is a multi-component system which encodes different types of information, but not independently of one another. For example, it has been suggested that fertility signal interferes with the production or the perception of colony-specific cues in ''

Camponotus floridanus ''Camponotus floridanus'', or Florida carpenter ant, is a species of ant in the genus ''Camponotus''. First described as ''Formica floridana'' by Buckley in 1866, the species was moved to ''Camponotus'' by Mayr in 1886. The ant is widespread in ...

''. In case of ''E. parasiticum'', host worker attractiveness due to the queen-specific substance could, in return, increase the probability to be detected as carrying distinct recognition cues, and then to be attacked by the most discriminating host workers. This hypothesis would explain why the social integration of the parasite into host colonies is imperfect.

References

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q5333965 Ectatomminae Endemic insects of Mexico Hymenoptera of North America Insects described in 2008 Parasitic Hymenoptera