Text 1136, 57 rader
Skriven 2004-12-21 05:55:00 av Wirt Atmar (1:278/230)
Ärende: Re: evolutionary origin o
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Eric asks:

>im doing a research paper in evolutionary biology.. my paper is about
>the evolution, origin, and history of family formicidae.. and im having
>these diffuclties in finding resources regarding my topic. can you pls
>help me?? tnx!!
>
>actually i have gathered some information about the evolution of ants
>but still its not enough..

The origin of ants is not particularly well worked out. The oldest specimen we
have at the moment is an ant preserved in mid-Cretaceous amber (92 Mya). This
one example has the external characteristics of both modern ants and sphecoid
wasps, and is thus called "sphecomyrmine". As a consequence, the immediate
ancestor to ants is presumed to be a wasp of the Sphecidae family.

If you have the time, read the books, "Insect Societies," by E.O. Wilson and
"The Ants," by B. Holldobler and E.O. Wilson. You'll find a wealth of
information there.

There are papers also available on-line. If you're not used to reading the
primary literature (papers written for one scientist to another), you may find
them a little sticky, but do what every young graduate student learns to do
when first introduced to the primary literature: read only the first and last
sections of the paper. The middle sections tend to be written for other
specialists.

These are two papers that may be of interest:

     "Evolution of the army ant syndrome: The origin and long-term evolutionary
stasis of a complex of behavioral and reproductive adaptations" 

     http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/100/11/6575


     "The first Late Cretaceous ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) from southern
Africa, with comments on the origin of the Myrmicinae"

     http://www.palaeoentomolog.ru/Publ/Ants_Cret.pdf

The first paper argues that the evolution of army ant syndrome did not evolve
polyphyletically (that is, multiple times, each independent of the other), but
rather only once and eventually spread to the two continents army ants now
appear on, South America and Africa. If so, then the evolution the behavior
would be most easily explained if it had occurred prior to the breakup of
Gondwaland.

Wirt Atmar
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