Living as a social parasite leads to genetic impoverishment in ants

Three-dimensional surface reconstructions of the brains and head capsules of host species A. heyeri ( top ) and the socially parasitic species P. argentina. The ants' olfactory lobes are marked in yellow. Lukas Schrader Some species of ants make life easier for themselves: they live in the colonies of other ant species, exploiting their hosts' resources. This form of social parasitism has evolved several times independently in ants. An international team of researchers headed by biologist Dr. Lukas Schrader at the University of Münster has now shown that these social parasites have lost some parts of their genomes. This so-called genome erosion impacted genes particularly important for non-parasitic ants, such as olfactory receptors functioning in chemical communication. These findings indicate that the evolution of social parasitism follows similar evolutionary mechanisms as that of non-social, ("regular") parasitism.