New Record of Platythyrea exigua Kempf, 1964 (Hymenoptera: Ponerinae) and its Nuclear 1C Value: Insights into Biogeography and Genome Size
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.13102/sociobiology.v73i3.12219Keywords:
Platythyreini, Species distribution, Atlantic Forest, Flow cytometryAbstract
The ant tribe Platythyreini comprises a single genus, Platythyrea Roger, 1863, with 40 described species. Platythyrea exigua Kempf, 1964 is a Neotropical species and, in Brazil, had previously been recorded only in Mato Grosso and Rondônia (Amazon biome) and in Bahia (Atlantic Forest biome), the latter considered a possibly isolated population. Here, we report the first record of P. exigua from the Atlantic Forest of Minas Gerais State, based on specimens sampled in Mata do Paraíso, Viçosa, in 2022. This new record represents an important biogeographical link between previously disjunct populations in the Amazonian and Atlantic Forests. In addition, we provide the first nuclear genome size value for P. exigua (1C = 0.266 ± 0.01 pg), which is markedly lower than values reported for other Ponerinae species. Together, these data highlight the importance of integrating faunal surveys with nuclear 1C values to improve our understanding of Neotropical ant diversity and distribution.
Downloads
References
Bennett M.D., Leitch I.J., Price H.J. & Johnston J.S. (2003). Comparisons with Caenorhabditis (~100Mb) and Drosophila (~175 Mb) using flow cytometry show genome size in Arabidopsis to be ~157 Mb and thus ~25% larger than the Arabidopsis genome initiative estimate of ~125 Mb. Annals of Botany. 91: 547-557.
Bolton, B. (2026). An Online Catalog of the Ants of the World. http://antcat.org (accessed date: 7 July 2026).
Brown, W.J. (1975). Contributions toward a reclassification of the Formicidae. v. Ponerinae, tribes Platythyreini, Cerapachyini, Cylindromyrmecini, Acanthostichini, and Aenictogitini. Search Agriculture, 5: 1-115.
Castro‐Astor, I.N., Cracraft, J., Tello, J.G., Alves, M.A.S., Mauck III, W.M., Aleixo, A., et al. (2024). Phylogeography, historical population demography, and climatic modeling of two bird species uncover past connections between Amazonia and the Atlantic Forest. Ecology and Evolution, 14: e70587.
Cardoso, D.C., Heinze, J., Moura, M.N. & Cristiano, M.P. (2018). Chromosomal variation among populations of a fungus-arming ant: implications for karyotype evolution and potential restriction to gene flow. BMC Evolutionary Biology, 18: 146.
Costa, A.N., Macedo, R.M., Vaz-Silva, J., Alves, K.M., Pacheco, R., Vieira-Neto, E.H.M. & Mundim, F.M. (2025). Ant assemblages (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) and spatial patterns of diversity along Cerrado remnants in Central-West Brazil. Brazilian Journal of Biology, 85: e290806.
Delabie, J.H.C. (2001). New range of the Brazilian endemic Platythyrea exigua (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Platythyreini). Revista de Biologia Tropical, 49: 1282.
Delabie, J.H.C., Feitosa, R.M., Serrão, J.E., Mariano, C.S.F., & Majer, J.D. (2015). As formigas poneromorfas do Brasil. Ilhéus, Bahia, Brazil: SciELO-Editus-Editora da UESC, 477 p.
Doležel, J., Bartos, J., Voglmayr, H. & Greilhuber, J. (2003). Nuclear DNA content and genome size of trouts and human, Cytometry, 51A: 127-128.
Economo, E.P., Narula, N., Friedman, N.R., Weise, M.D. & Guénard, B. (2018). Macroecology and macroevolution of the latitudinal diversity gradient in ants. Nature Communications, 9: 1778.
Feitosa, R.M., Camacho, G.P., Silva, T.S.R., Ulysséa, M.A., Ladino, N., Oliveira, A.M., et al. (2022). Ants of Brazil: an overview based on 50 years of diversity studies. Systematics and Biodiversity, 20: 1-27.
Gregory, T.R. (2005). Genome size evolution in animals. In Gregory, T.R. (ed) The evolution of the genome. San Diego, Elsevire. pp. 3-87.
Kempf, W.W. (1964). Uma nova Platythyrea do Brasil. Revista Brasileira de Entomologia, 11: 141-144.
Lattke, J.E. (2003). The genus Platythyrea Roger, 1863 in Dominican Amber (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Ponerinae). Entomotropica, 18: 107-111.
Leyva, M.J. (2013). A revision of the New World ants of the genus Platythyrea Roger 1863 (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). University of Texas at El Paso, Dissertation, 74 pp.
Moura, M.N., Cardoso, D.C. & Cristiano, M. P. (2021). The tight genome size of ants: diversity and evolution under ancestral state reconstruction and base composition. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 193: 124-144.
Otto, F.J. (1990). DAPI staining of fixed cells for high-resolution flow cytometry of nuclear DNA. In Z. Darzynkiewiez, H.A. Crissman & J.P. Robinson (Eds.), Methods in Cell Biology (pp. 105-110). San Diego. USA. Academic Press.
Prates, I., Melo-Sampaio, P.R., Drummond, L.O., Teixeira Jr, M., Rodrigues, M.T., & Carnaval, A.C. (2017). Biogeographic links between southern Atlantic Forest and western South America: rediscovery, re-description, and phylogenetic relationships of two rare montane anole lizards from Brazil. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 113: 49-58.
Schmidt, C.A. & Shattuck, S.O. (2014). The higher classification of the ant subfamily Ponerinae (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), with a review of ponerine ecology and behavior. Zootaxa, 3817: 1-242.
Schmidt, F.A., Ribas, C.R., Feitosa, R.M., Baccaro, F.B., Queiroz, A.C.M., Sobrinho, T.G., et al. (2022). Ant diversity studies in Brazil: an overview of the myrmecological research in a megadiverse country. Insectes Sociaux, 69: 105-121.
Tavares, M.G., Carvalho, C.R. & Soares, F.A.F. (2010). Genome size variation in Melipona species (Hymenoptera: Apidae) and sub-grouping by their DNA content. Apidologie, 41: 636-642.
Tsutsui, N.D., Suarez, A.V., Spagna, J.C. & Johnston, J.S. (2008). The evolution of genome size in ants. BMC Evolutionary Biology, 8: 64.
Wild, A.L. (2007). A catalogue of the ants of Paraguay (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Zootaxa, 1622: 1-55.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Mara Garcia Tavares, Gisele Amaro Teixeira, Pedro Otávio Magalhães Pereira, Wellington Ronildo Clarindo
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Sociobiology is a diamond open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
eISSN 2447-8067
