Vollenhovia emeryi (Formicidae: Myrmicinae) is divided into two morphs based on the wing length of the queen caste: the long-winged with a normal wing and the short-winged with the aberrant short wing. The phylogenetic analysis shows that the short-winged is derived from the long-winged. In Korea, only the long-winged morph is infected with Wolbachia while the short-winged is devoid of the bacterium suggesting that the short-winged evolved the resistance to the bacterial infection. Intriguingly, some Japanese short-winged colonies proved to still be infected with the bacterium.
We hypothesized that the infected Japanese short-winged is the intermediate form in the process to complete cure. However, the data of the MLST and the measurement of Wolbachia density did not support our hypothesis. Our further experiment using microsatellite markers shows that the infected Japanese short-winged shows the similar genetic background to the long-winged. In this presentation we will discuss the potential resistance evolution in the Korean short-winged and future research direction at the genome level.

• Soyeon Park(Division of Basic Research, National Institute of Ecology)
• Pureum Noh(Division of Basic Research, National Institute of Ecology)
• Jae Chun Choe(Division of Basic Research, National Institute of Ecology)
• Gilsang Jeong(Division of Basic Research, National Institute of Ecology)