Flickr, Dani P.L.The Y chromosome, apparently, is not as special as we thought. Another example of a non-recombining chromosome that regulates a choice between two phenotypes is described in a study published today (January 16) in Nature. Fire ant colonies are organized either around a single queen or several, and the presence of a non-recombining “social chromosome” in some worker ants dictates which structure a colony adopts.
“It’s very exciting work,” said Gene Robinson, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who was not involved in the study. The results help us “understand behavioral plasticity and alternative behavioral forms in as broad a genomic context as possible.”
Fire ant (Solenopsis invicta) colonies are organized by one of two different social structures. In monogyne colonies, a large queen accumulates a large amount of body fat, mates with one male, and flies off to establish a new colony she initially feeds with her own body stores. In polygyne colonies, new queens don’t grow large and fat, and stay with their home colonies their whole lives. Worker ants only tolerate queens matching their own colony’s social type, and distinguish between them based ...
