Abstract: The little fire ant, Wasmannia auropunctata, displays a peculiar breeding system polymorphism. Classical haplo-diploid sexual reproduction between reproductive individuals occurs in some populations, whereas, in others, queens and males reproduce clonally. Workers are produced sexually and are sterile in both clonal and sexual populations. The evolutionary fate of the clonal lineages depends strongly on the underlying mechanisms allowing reproductive individuals to transmit their genomes to subsequent generations. We used several queen-offspring data sets to estimate the rate of transition from heterozygosity to homozygosity associated with recombination events at 33 microsatellite loci in thelytokous parthenogenetic queen lineages and compared these rates with theoretical expectations under various parthenogenesis mechanisms. We then used sexually produced worker families to define linkage groups for these 33 loci and to compare meiotic recombination rates in sexual and parthenogenetic queens. Our results demonstrate that queens from clonal populations reproduce by automictic parthenogenesis with central fusion. These same parthenogenetic queens produce normally segregating meiotic oocytes for workers, which display much lower rates of recombination (by a factor of 45) than workers produced by sexual queens. These low recombination rates also concern the parthenogenetic production of queen offspring, as indicated by the very low rates of transition from heterozygosity to homozygosity observed (from 0% to 2.8%). We suggest that the combination of automixis with central fusion and a major decrease in recombination rates allows clonal queens to benefit from thelytoky while avoiding the potential inbreeding depression resulting from the loss of heterozygosity during automixis. In sterile workers, the strong decrease of recombination rates may also facilitate the conservation over time of some coadapted allelic interactions within chromosomes that might confer an adaptive advantage in habitats disturbed by human activity, where clonal populations of W. auropunctata are mostly found.

Abstract: The leaf economics spectrum1,2 and the global spectrum of plant forms and functions3 revealed fundamental axes of variation in plant traits, which represent different ecological strategies that are shaped by the evolutionary development of plant species2. Ecosystem functions depend on environmental conditions and the traits of species that comprise the ecological communities4. However, the axes of variation of ecosystem functions are largely unknown, which limits our understanding of how ecosystems respond as a whole to anthropogenic drivers, climate and environmental variability4,5. Here we derive a set of ecosystem functions6 from a dataset of surface gas exchange measurements across major terrestrial biomes. We find that most of the variability within ecosystem functions (71.8%) is captured by three key axes. The first axis reflects maximum ecosystem productivity and is mostly explained by vegetation structure. The second axis reflects ecosystem water-use strategies and is jointly explained by variation in vegetation height and climate. The third axis, which represents ecosystem carbon-use efficiency, features a gradient related to aridity, and is explained primarily by variation in vegetation structure. We show that two state-of-the-art land surface models reproduce the first and most important axis of ecosystem functions. However, the models tend to simulate more strongly correlated functions than those observed, which limits their ability to accurately predict the full range o

Abstract: The invasive ant species Wasmannia auropunctata displays both ecologically dominant and non-dominant populations within its native range. Three factors could theoretically explain the ecological dominance of some native populations of W. auropunctata: (i) its clonal reproductive system, through demographic and/or adaptive advantages; (ii) its unicolonial social organization, through lower intraspecific and efficient interspecific competition; (iii) the human disturbance of its native range, through the modification of biotic and abiotic environmental conditions. We used microsatellite markers and behavioural tests to uncover the reproductive modes and social organization of dominant and non-dominant native populations in natural and human-modified habitats. Microsatellite and mtDNA data indicated that dominant and non-dominant native populations (supercolonies as determined by aggression tests) of W. auropunctata did not belong to different evolutionary units. We found that the reproductive system and the social organization are neither necessary nor sufficient to explain W. auropunctata ecological dominance. Dominance rather seems to be set off by unknown ecological factors altered by human activities, as all dominant populations were recorded in human-modified habitats. The clonal reproductive system found in some populations of W. auropunctata may however indirectly contribute to its ecological dominance by allowing the species to expand its environmental niche, through the fixation over time of specific combinations of divergent male and female genotypes. Unicoloniality may rather promote the range expansion of already dominant populations than actually trigger ecological dominance. The W. auropunctata model illustrates the strong impact of human disturbance on species' ecological features and the adaptive potential of clonal reproductive systems.

Abstract: The interaction between Allomerus plant-ants and an ascomycete fungus growing on and strengthening their galleries is not opportunistic. We previously demonstrated that this association is highly specific as only one fungal species represented by a few haplotypes was found associated with the ants. We also discovered that the ants' behavior revealed a major investment in manipulating and enhancing the growth of their associated fungus. We have growing evidence that this specificity is consistent with selection by the ants. Here, we discuss this selection within the framework of insect agriculture, as we believe these ants fulfill all of the prerequisites to be considered as farmers. Allomerus ants promote their symbiont's growth, protect it from potential pathogens and select specific cultivars. Taken together, we think that the interaction between Allomerus ants and their cultivar might represent the first case of insect fungiculture used as a means of obtaining building material.

Abstract: The intensification of the hydrological cycle, with an observed and modeled increase in drought incidence and severity, underscores the need to quantify drought effects on carbon cycling and the terrestrial sink. FLUXNET, a global network of eddy covariance towers, provides dense data streams of meteorological data, and through flux partitioning and gap filling algorithms, estimates of net ecosystem productivity (F-NEP), gross ecosystem productivity (P), and ecosystem respiration (R). We analyzed the functional relationship of these three carbon fluxes relative to evaporative fraction (EF), an index of drought and site water status, using monthly data records from 238 micrometeorological tower sites distributed globally across 11 biomes. The analysis was based on relative anomalies of both EF and carbon fluxes and focused on drought episodes by biome and climatic season. Globally P was approximate to 50% more sensitive to a drought event than R. Network-wide drought-induced decreases in carbon flux averaged -16.6 and -9.3 g C m-2 month-1 for P and R, i.e., drought events induced a net decline in the terrestrial sink. However, in evergreen forests and wetlands drought was coincident with an increase in P or R during parts of the growing season. The most robust relationships between carbon flux and EF occurred during climatic spring for F-NEP and in climatic summer for P and R. Upscaling flux sensitivities to a global map showed that spatial patterns for all three carbon fluxes were linked to the distribution of croplands. Agricultural areas exhibited the highest sensitivity whereas the tropical region had minimal sensitivity to drought. Combining gridded flux sensitivities with their uncertainties and the spatial grid of FLUXNET revealed that a more robust quantification of carbon flux response to drought requires additional towers in all biomes of Africa and Asia as well as in the cropland, shrubland, savannah, and wetland biomes globally.