This work benefited from the support of the @erc.europa.eu grant RoyalMess, hosted by @cnrs.fr , @isemevol.bsky.social and @umontpellier.bsky.social.
Article freely available here for more details: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#Xenoparity shows how sexual parasitism can evolve to a self-sufficient unit of selection, where two species bind their lifecycles. Question: When two species sexually depend on each other and are produced by the same colonies, how should we consider the resulting superorganism?

This reveals a new reproductive mode: #xenoparity —"giving birth to alien species". By becoming xenoparous, M. ibericus queens allowed themselves to expand their range, cloning M. structor males in their colonies and invading Southern Europe with hybrid workers.

⚠️Wilder: workers have two father types - wild males (from M. structor nests) or clones (only in M. ibericus nests). This suggests that queens domesticated M. structor males by cloning them from the wild. Fun detail: clonal vs. wild males look different, like pigs vs. boars🐗→🐷!

🔬Other key result: this queen's spermatheca contains sperm from both species. For cross-species cloning to occur, this means that maternal DNA in the ova has been fully replaced by M. structor DNA stored in the spermatheca #androgenesis.

Lab evidences now 🧪:
🥚When isolating M. ibericus queens in the lab, we found that ~10% of their eggs carried ONLY M. structor nuclear DNA.
🔎Even better: after monitoring ~50 colonies in the lab during 18 months, we observed male adults of both species laid by a single queen.

🔍 How did we reach this odd conclusion? Field evidences first: we found M. structor males within 26 M. ibericus colonies (11 populations). All have:
✅100% M. structor nuclear genome.
✳️Mitochondria matching the M. ibericus queens of the colony, suggesting they're their mothers.

💡To ensure a sperm supply to mass-produce their hybrid workers, we found that M. ibericus queens clone M. structor males.
➡️Result? Males from the same mother have distinct genomes and morphologies, as they belong to species that diverged over 5 million years ago.

🧬Sequencing 390 ant genomes (5 species) shows that Messor ibericus queens depend on M. structor sperm to produce all their workers.
⚠️Problem: these hybrid workers invaded southern Europe, while M. structor colonies are missing. How's possible? Where do the fathers come from?

Messor harvester ants dominate Southern Europe by collecting seeds, turning them into "ant bread"🥖.
But this is not the coolest thing about them: in some species, queens are sperm parasites, as they rely on sperm from other species to produce their workers.

Cross-species cloning in ants 🐜
These two males belong to different species—but share the same mother. How? Why?
To celebrate the print release of our last paper in this week’s @nature.com (issue 8084), here’s a thread summarizing the results. Why? Let’s dive in🧵👇 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Be sure to check Poster number 100 with Alice Ha at #ESEB2025 if you fancy crazy reproductive systems

Our analyses also suggests that the genus originated in the Irano-Indian area around 20 million years ago, with a major diversification event during the mid-Miocene climatic optimum.

We redefined the taxonomic groups of the genus thanks to the genomic sequencing of 58 Messor species from museum collections @nhm-london.bsky.social

Huge colony of Messor barbarus in the @MuseumOrleans. I'll answer to visitor questions this Sunday!

President's address of Ophélie Ronce at #eseb2019 !

Polymorphism variation among species is mostly explained by mutation-drift equilibrium only : neutral theory is still relevant in light of modern, genome-scale data, no? #selfcitation #sorry (2/2

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