The potential for gene flow in a dependent lineage system of a harvester ant: Fair meiosis in the f₁ generation

We investigated the potential for gene flow in a dependent lineage (DL) system of the harvester ant Pogonomyrmex. Each DL system is composed of 2 reproductively isolated lineages that are locked in an obligate mutualism. The genetic components that produce the worker phenotype are acquired by hybridizing with the partner lineage. In the mating flight, queens of both lineages mate with multiple males from each lineage. During colony growth and reproduction, eggs fertilized by partner-lineage sperm produce F₁ hybrid workers with interlineage genomes, whereas eggs fertilized by same-lineage sperm result in the development of new queens with intralineage genomes. New males are typically produced from unfertilized eggs laid by the pure-lineage queen but in her absence may be produced by interlineage F₁ workers. We investigated the potential for interlineage gene flow in this system using 2 classes of lineage-specific nuclear markers to identify hybrid genome combinations. We confirmed the production of viable interlineage F₁ reproductive females in field colonies, the occurrence of which is associated with the relative frequencies of each lineage in the population: interlineage F₁ queens occurred only in the rare lineage of the population with dramatically skewed lineage frequencies. In laboratory colonies, we detected fair meiosis in interlineage F₁ workers leading to the production of viable and haploid interlineage F₂males. We conclude that the genomes of each lineage recombine freely, suggesting that extrinsic postzygotic selection maintains the integrity of each lineage genome. We compare our findings with those of the H1/H2 DL system.