| 研究実績の概要 |
The overall purpose of the study was to examine, in detail, the sex determination system in the little fire ant, Wasmannia auropunctata. In general, little is known about the specific genetic mechanisms of ant sex determination, and we chose this species, because of preliminary data suggesting that it may deviate from the commonly assumed single-locus complementary sex determination assumed in other ants.
After two years of waiting, this year we finally received permits for field work in the Galapagos, and carried out a filed trip to four of the inhabited islands in December. We collected over 200 queens and a smaller number of males from these locations. It appears that the population has undergone a collapse in the past year, which has made collection of males substantially more difficult. We also published a paper (Miyakawa and Mikheyev, 2015) that explains the puzzling reproductive system found in this species.
However, this year we have made excellent progress of the Vollenhovia emeryi system that we developed while waiting for the Galapagos permits. We experimental backcrosses, we showed that this species has two sex determination loci. This work was presented at the 2014 meeting of the International Union for the Study of Social Insects.
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