Endosymbiont-free ants: Molecular biological evidence that neither Wolbachia, Cardinium or any other bacterial endosymbionts play a role in thelytokous parthenogenesis in the harvester ant species, Messor barbarus and M. capitatus (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

Abstract

Thelytokous parthenogenesis is a type of sex determination in which females are produced from unfertilized eggs. Genetic and endosymbiont-induced forms of thelytoky have been described in the Hymenoptera. Our study has revealed that Wolbachia, Cardinium, Spiroplasma and other endosymbionts are probably absent in Iberian populations of harvester ants, Messor barbarus and Messor capitatus (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Myrmicinae) and are thus not involved as factors in the sex determination of these two species. Our results lend weight to previous suggestions that bacterial parthenogenesis induction in Hymenoptera is probably limited to the reproductive systems of chalcidoid and cynipoid parasitoid wasps (Hymenoptera: Apocrita: Chalcidoidea and Cynipoidea, respectively).

Keywords

• wolbachia
• cardinium
• spiroplasma
• endosymbionts
• formicidae
• messor
• thelytokous parthenogenesis