Data from: Evolution of thorax architecture in ant castes highlights trade-off between flight and ground behaviors

The concerted evolution of morphological and behavioral specializations has compelling examples in ant castes. Unique to ants is a marked divergence between winged queens and wingless workers, but morphological specializations for behaviors on the ground have been overlooked. We analyzed thorax morphology of queens and workers in species from 21 of the 25 ant subfamilies. We uncovered unique skeletomuscular modifications in workers that presumably increase power and flexibility of head–thorax articulation, emphasizing that workers are not simply wingless versions of queens. We also identified two distinct types of queens and showed repeated evolutionary associations with strategies of colony foundation. Solitary founding queens that hunt have a more worker-like thorax. Our results reveal that ants invest in the relative size of thorax segments according to their tasks. Versatility of head movements allows for better manipulation of food and objects, which arguably contributed to the ants’ ecological and evolutionary success.形态与行为特化的协同演化在蚂蚁品级中拥有极具说服力的实例。有翅蚁后与无翅工蚁间的显著分化为蚂蚁所独有，但针对地面行为的形态特化却长期被学界忽视。我们分析了25个蚂蚁亚科中21个亚科的物种的蚁后与工蚁胸部形态，发现工蚁存在独特的骨骼肌肉特化，推测该特化可提升头胸关节的力量与活动灵活性，这也表明工蚁并非仅仅是无翅版的蚁后。此外，我们还识别出两种截然不同的蚁后类型，并证明其与群体奠基策略存在反复出现的演化关联。独自觅食奠基的蚁后拥有更接近工蚁的胸部结构。我们的研究结果显示，蚂蚁会根据不同职责调整胸部各节的相对尺寸。头部运动的灵活性使得蚂蚁能够更出色地操控食物与其他物体，而这无疑是助力蚂蚁在生态与演化层面取得成功的关键因素之一。