Sympatric speciation through intraspecific social parasitism.

ABSTRACT: Sympatric speciation through intraspecific social parasitism has been proposed for the evolution of Hymenopteran workerless parasites. Such inquilines exploit related host taxa to produce their own sexual offspring. The relatedness of inquilines to their hosts has been generalized in Emery's rule, suggesting that social parasites are close or the closest relatives to their host species. If the closest relative of each parasite is its host, then multiple independent origins of the parasite species are implied even within a single genus, probably through sympatric speciation. To test the plausibility of sympatric speciation in inquilines, we conducted a mitochondrial DNA phylogenetic analysis in three inquiline-host pairs of Myrmica ant species. We show that congeneric inquilines have origin

SUBMITTER: Savolainen R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC165848 | biostudies-literature | 2003 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature