The mechanism of sex determination is common for all honeybee species (Apis spp.) by the complementary sex determination (csd) gene. The csd gene has been studied in the Western honey bee (Apis mellifera L.), the Eastern honey bee (Apis cerana F.) and the giant honey bee (Apis dorsata F.), whereas no studies had been conducted on the high altitude Himalayan or black giant honey bee, Apis laboriosa Smith. In the present study, we cloned the genomic exon 6 to exon 9 region of the A. laboriosa csd gene, and identified 13 csd haplotypes. The data was analyzed and compared with the other aforementioned three honeybee species. The results showed that, as with the other three Apis species, region 3 of the csd gene contains an RS domain at the N terminal, a proline-rich domain at the C terminal, and a hypervariable region in the middle. A phylogenetic tree showed that the csd haplotypes from A. laboriosa fell into one clade with those from A. dorsata, and were separated from those from the other two species, A. mellifera and A. cerana. The network map also showed that the csd haplotypes from A. laboriosa and A. dorsata are well mixed among each other, and do not form two separate branches. Pairwise Fst analysis revealed that the value between A. laboriosa and A. dorsata was very low (0.098), confirming a close relationship to exist between them., Huan Wang ... [et al.]., and Obsahuje seznam literatury
1_The arboricolous dolichoderine ant Liometopum microcephalum (Panzer, 1798) is considered to be mainly predatory, although there are some reports of it tending aphids. The main objective of the present study was to confirm that this ant has a trophobiotic relationship with aphids and assess seasonal differences in its utilization of honeydew. We hypothesized that the worker ants on trees where they have their nest (nest tree) and trees where they are foraging (foraging trees) should differ in gaster mass and sugar content depending on their direction of movement, and that both should be highest in spring. From spring to summer 2009, ascending and descending workers were collected from nest and foraging trees at a locality in South Moravia, Czech Republic. Mass of their gasters and their content of total and reducing sugars were measured using chemical (photometric) methods. Differences in gaster mass confirmed the flow of liquid food from foraging to nest trees, but there were no significant between-month differences. Contents of total and reducing sugars were positively correlated with gaster mass. The gasters of workers descending from foraging trees contained significantly more reducing sugars than those of workers descending or ascending nest trees. The content of reducing sugars was lowest at the beginning of the ants’ activity period in April and highest in June, with a non-significant drop in July. Results for total sugars were similar, with the decrease in July being significant. The concentration of sugars in the gasters of workers ascending and descending nest trees did not differ significantly but the absolute content of total sugars was higher in the gasters of ascending ants., 2_Results from foraging trees confirmed that the ants collected the honeydew from these trees. Possible reasons for the ambigous results for nest trees are discussed. We conclude that trophobiosis is an important component of the nutritional biology of L. microcephalum., Jiří Schlaghamerský ... []., and Obsahuje seznam literatury