{"id":31390,"date":"2025-12-16T10:33:21","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T09:33:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bio.uni-mainz.de\/?p=31390"},"modified":"2025-12-16T11:03:41","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T10:03:41","slug":"climate-shapes-arms-race-between-ants-and-their-social-parasites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bio.uni-mainz.de\/en\/2025\/12\/16\/climate-shapes-arms-race-between-ants-and-their-social-parasites\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate shapes arms race between ants and their social parasites"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/jgu-base-pageheader>\n
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15\/12\/2025 | Two new studies show how climate influences behavior, communication, and genome evolution \u2013 driving adaptation in a long-running conflict.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The battle between ant hosts and their social parasites is strongly influenced by climate. Temperature and humidity shape how the ants behave, communicate, and even evolve \u2014 while host and parasite respond with very different genetic strategies. These are the findings of two recent studies in which researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) and the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre combined behavioral experiments with state-of-the-art genomic analyses. “Climate clearly explains the variation in host and parasite behavior better than parasite prevalence itself,” says Professor Susanne Foitzik, senior author of both studies and chair of Behavioral Ecology and Social Evolution at JGU. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first study, published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology<\/em>, the team examined a parasite, the so-called “slave-making ant” Temnothorax americanus<\/em>, and its host, the ant Temnothorax longispinosus<\/em>. The social parasite invades host nests and steals their brood, which later grows up to work for the parasite colony \u2013 an extraordinary form of social parasitism. The researchers focused on how the ants’ behavior and chemical communication vary across different climates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Building on these findings, the second study, published in Molecular Biology and Evolution<\/em>, investigated the genetic basis of these climate\u2011dependent differences in traits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Source: JGU | COM | Unit Communication and Media<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n<\/jgu-base-buttonitem>\n\n<\/jgu-base-button>\n\n\n

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\n \n <\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":31374,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[360,408],"tags":[937],"class_list":["post-31390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","category-publications","tag-two-recent-studies-published"],"primary_category":{"id":360,"name":"General","slug":"general","parent":0,"breadcrumb":"General"},"media":{},"image":{"url":"https:\/\/cms.zdv.uni-mainz.de\/fb10\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2025\/12\/10_iome_ameisen_parasiten-1.jpg","credit":""},"index":"Two recent studies published","assigned_date":"","external_link":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bio.uni-mainz.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bio.uni-mainz.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bio.uni-mainz.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bio.uni-mainz.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bio.uni-mainz.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31390"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bio.uni-mainz.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31401,"href":"https:\/\/www.bio.uni-mainz.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31390\/revisions\/31401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bio.uni-mainz.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bio.uni-mainz.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bio.uni-mainz.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bio.uni-mainz.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}