Unmated Queens Show Worker-Like Behaviour and Gene Expression in Polygynous Colonies of the Ant Stigmatomma pallipes.
Paper
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The authors' code
Shell · 23 lines · 453 B · GPL-3.0
- #!/bin/bash
- #SBATCH -A m2_jgu-funcpoll
- #SBATCH -J run_nanoplot
- #SBATCH -C skylake
- #SBATCH -p parallel
- #SBATCH -n 1
- #SBATCH -c 1
- #SBATCH -t 02:00:00
- #SBATCH -v
- #SBATCH -o run_nanoplot.%j.out
- #SBATCH -e run_nanoplot.%j.err
- module purge
- module load lang/Python/3.12.3-GCCcore-13.3.0
- PROJECT_DIR=/lustre/project/m2_jgu-funcpoll
- ## Take inputs from the command line:
- INPUT=$1
- ~/.local/bin/NanoPlot --fastq "$INPUT" -t 20 -o results/nanoplot_output
run_nanoplot.sh at commit 9d77493, under GPL-3.0 · at the source
Overview
- Institute of Organismic and Molecular Evolution, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz Germany
- Insect Biology Research Institute, UMR 7261, CNRS, University of Tours Tours France
Abstract
Insect societies show a reproductive division of labor between egg‐laying queens and workers that fulfil all non‐reproductive tasks. Polygyny, the coexistence of several queens in a colony, has evolved multiple times in social insects. Although queens in polygynous colonies are often assumed to have similar reproductive outputs, they may actually show variation in terms of physiology and behaviour. However, little is known on the mechanistic basis of such variation. Here, we used the ant Stigmatomma pallipes to investigate: (i) whether nestmate queens from polygynous colonies differed in mobility, behaviour, and gene expression; and (ii) whether this variation was explained by their mating status. We used individual tracking and behavioural scoring to identify two types of queens: low‐mobility (LM) queens that behaved like monogynous queens and high‐mobility (HM) queens with worker‐like behaviour. Dissections of reproductive organs revealed that only one queen per colony was mated and reproductively active, consistently corresponding to the LM category. As a complementary approach, we performed transcriptomic‐based analyses of brains and fat bodies, finding that mated LM‐polygynous queens had similar transcriptomic profiles to monogynous queens, while unmated HM‐polygynous queens resembled workers. Transcriptomic differences between LM‐ and HM‐polygynous queens were primarily associated with processes related to protein synthesis, transcription, and neural activity. Our finding that unmated queens in polygynous S. pallipes colonies exhibit worker‐like behaviour and gene expression challenges traditional views of queen specialization at different biological levels and provides new insights into reproductive division of labor in insect societies.
Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.
Repository
Its files are read in the Code ↔ Paper reader above.
Joscolgan/stigmatomma_pallipes_genome
9d77493493caf66771c3054431b3ddedf8f12436, 16 May 2026Availability: 1 check, the latest on 27 September 2026: the link answers
- 27 September 2026: the link answers
14 files
- 01_quality_assessment/
run_nanoplot.sh , Shell, 23 lines - 02_nanopore_filtering/
run_chopper.sh , Shell, 28 lines - 03_assembly/
run_flye_hq.sh , Shell, 26 lines - 04_assembly_assessment/
run_quast.sh , Shell, 19 lines - 04_assembly_assessment/
run_quast_multi.sh , Shell, 24 lines - 05_polishing/
run_minimap2.sh , Shell, 23 lines - 05_polishing/
run_racon.sh , Shell, 26 lines - 06_busco/
run_busco.sh , Shell, 27 lines - 07_repeat_masking/
run_repeat_masker.sh , Shell, 20 lines - 07_repeat_masking/
run_repeat_masker_soft.s , Shell, 21 linesh - 07_repeat_masking/
run_repeat_modeler.sh , Shell, 43 lines - 07_repeat_masking/
run_repeat_modeler_new.s , Shell, 43 linesh - LICENSE, License, 674 lines
- README.md, Text, 38 lines
The paper's code and data availability statement is in the Data section.
Tracing map
Proposed by the machine: these links were found in the paper and verified at the source, without human review. The map will receive a Zenodo DOI once one of the paper's authors has validated it with their ORCID.
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Data
No dataset and no data link were found in the paper.
Data Availability Statement
All raw data used in this study are available as part of the Supporting Information—S1 or made publicly available from the NCBI Sequence Read Archive (BioProject: PRJNA1371108). The code and input data for all analyses are provided as Supporting Information—S1.
Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.
Versions
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Version 2, 28 September 2026
- Publisher: n/a → Wiley
Version 1, 27 September 2026: the first record
Recorded: type, language, journal, volume, issue, pages, dates, 4 authors, 5 keywords, 9 MeSH terms, 4 funders, 104 references.
Cite
This paper
Bolder, M. F., Möllmann, J. S., Colgan, T. J., & Libbrecht, R. (2026). Unmated Queens Show Worker-Like Behaviour and Gene Expression in Polygynous Colonies of the Ant Stigmatomma pallipes. Molecular ecology, 35(9), e70360. https://
BibTeX
@article{bolder2026unmat
author = {Bolder, Maximilian F. and Möllmann, Jannik S. and Colgan, Thomas J. and Libbrecht, Romain},
title = {{Unmated Queens Show Worker-Like Behaviour and Gene Expression in Polygynous Colonies of the Ant Stigmatomma pallipes}},
journal = {Molecular ecology},
year = {2026},
month = may,
volume = {35},
number = {9},
pages = {e70360},
publisher = {Wiley},
issn = {0962-1083},
doi = {10.1111/
url = {https://
pmid = {42053018},
pmcid = {PMC13126620}
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
AU - Bolder, Maximilian F.
AU - Möllmann, Jannik S.
AU - Colgan, Thomas J.
AU - Libbrecht, Romain
TI - Unmated Queens Show Worker-Like Behaviour and Gene Expression in Polygynous Colonies of the Ant Stigmatomma pallipes
T2 - Molecular ecology
J2 - Mol Ecol
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/
VL - 35
IS - 9
SP - e70360
SN - 0962-1083
PB - Wiley
DO - 10.1111/
UR - https://
LA - en
ER -
CSL-JSON
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