Vollenhovia emeryi (Hymenoptera: Myrmicinae) is dimorphic in its wing morphology of alate females: the long-winged and the short-winged. In our previous study, we found that the long-winged is ancestral and the short-winged is derived. Intriguingly, the former is infected with the intracellular symbiotic Wolbachia bacterium and the derived is void of the bacterium indicating that the latter somehow evolved resistance to the bacterium.
This may be one of few cases in which transition from susceptibility to the bacterium can be traceable via the divergence estimation. As a consequence, we inferred that the two morphs diverged approximately quarter million years ago; a remarkably recent event in evolutionary perspective.
In this presentation, we will further discuss genetic orchestration in the host insect and future research directions.

• Pureum Noh(Dept. of Ecology & Evolution, National Institute of Ecology)
• Jaeyeon Kang(Dept. of Ecology & Evolution, National Institute of Ecology)
• Jae Chun Choe(Dept. of Ecology & Evolution, National Institute of Ecology, Division of EcoScience, Ewha Womans University)
• Gilsang Jeong(Dept. of Ecology & Evolution, National Institute of Ecology)