우리나라에서 개미가 종자를 분산시키는 식물종과 관련 개미 및 개미의 종자선택 행태를 밝히고자, 2013년 4월부터과 2014년 7월까지 현호색 4종의 열매 수집, 전파체 특성, 급여시험을 실시하였다. 개미가 종자를 퍼뜨리는(ant-dispersed) 4종의 현호색 속의 식물이 새롭게 확인되었다. 4종의 식물체의 종자에 부착된 지방체의 형태는 주걱처럼 생겼으며, 식물종간 길이나 크기는 서로 달랐다. 전파체, 종자 및 지방체 무게 및 지방체 비율 등은 식물종간 고도의 통계적 유의차가 인정되었다. 전파체와 종자의 무게는 갈퀴현호색이 가장 무거웠고, 다음으로 현호색, 댓잎현호색, 빗살현호색의 순이었다. 지방체의 비율은 댓잎현호색이 23.7%로 가장 높았고, 다음으로 현호색, 빗살현호색, 갈퀴현호색의 순이었다. 지방체를 물어가는 개미는 곰개미, 누운털개미, 고동털개미 및 주름개미 4종이었으며, 가장 빈번하게 지방체를 물어가는 종은 곰개미였다. 개미의 전파체 선호도는 댓잎현호색, 현호색, 빗살현호색, 갈퀴현호색의 순이었으며, 이러한 순서는 지방체의 비율과 같은 순이었다. 개미의 전파체 선택행동은 식물종 또는 개체간 생존율에 영향을 미칠 것이라 사료된다. 앞으로 개미가 종자를 퍼뜨리는 식물종과 개미에 대한 조사와 급여시험 등의 많은 연구가 필요하다고 사료된다.

The Wolbachia bacterium is one of the best studied reproductive manipulators found in variuos invertebrate taxa. Theoretically it infects two thirds of invertebrates. It is thought to have a huge impact on its hosts’ evolution. The ant is a very successful organism in terrestrial ecosystems especially with its charicteristic sociality. However, the influence of Wolbachia on the animal remains to be paid more attention. This study is to examine Wolbachia infection frequency in some ant species in Korea. The result shows that 9 out of 12 ant species harbor the bacterium. Furthermore, at least two species show polymorphism in their infection status at the colony level. This will be used as a foundation of further study on the interactions between the bacterium and ant species.

In Korea, twelve species in genus Myrmica have been described. Some of them are morphologically similar and this makes their identification difficult. For this reason, we collected several Myrmica species in question and inferred their phylogenetic relationship using the 418bp partial COI (cytochrome C oxidase 1) region from a total of 33 individuals. We found that the CO1 haplotypes are effectively grouped into three clusters that match well to their external morphological characters. Although this three species could be distinguished by the only small part of the COI region, the two individual sample of the M. kotokuii and one sample of the M. carinata are included in the M. kurokii group. The results indicate that the morphological identification could be obscure in the three species and it requires a close examination for this phenomenon.

The ant species, Vollenhovia emeryi, is distributed in Far East. The species can be divided into two major groups by their wing morphology of reproductives: short-winged and long-winged. A nationwide survey of the species was conducted for analyzing the mitochondrial haplotype diversity and genetic population structure. We collected 91 samples from 40 locations. A total of the 1239 bp partial COI (cytochrome C oxidase 1) region was used for the analyses. We found the total of 21 haplotypes. The mitochondrial haplotypes may correspond to the wing morphology. The genetic population structure examined potential geographic barriers of gene flow such as distance, mountains, rivers and plains which are non-mountain areas to prevent dispersal through mountain range. The result implied that no barriers considered in this study affected differently gene flow. Therefore, the behavioral characteristics of the ant may be the causal constraint of its genetic exchange.