Year: 2025
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Comparative functional morphology seeks to understand the patterns and mechanisms that shape the diversity of life by examining variation among species. We have much to learn about the engineering principles of nature and how these shape evolution over time. Ants, with their taxonomic and morphological diversity as well as ecological dominance, are an excellent model for exploring the link between form and function. Given the role of mesosoma in supporting body weight in ants, enabling locomotion, and other functions such as carrying prey, we hypothesized that as ants diversified into different niches, the skeletomuscular system of mesosoma was modified to fit for different ecological roles. To test this hypothesis, I pursued three subprojects: In the first chapter, I performed a detailed morphological analysis of the skeletomuscular system of the mesosoma of ecologically generalized ant Formica rufa. These analyses provide a comprehensive atlas of the skeletomuscular system of the ant mesosoma and provide a functional interpretation of the muscles. In the second chapter, I focused on a specialized mode of locomotion in ants: forward leaping. I investigated the morphological changes associated with jumping behavior by comparing the musculature between jumping and non-jumping ants. I demonstrated that the enlargement of the depressor muscles is the primary factor underlying the jumping ability in ants. Finally, in the third chapter, I studied the evolutionary patterns of mesosoma in ants using phylogenetic comparative methods. Our data suggest that size-related changes, correlated evolution of traits, and phylogeny play a significant role in explaining the variability in mesosoma muscles, however, there was no effect of the ecological niche. This dissertation is the first step towards understanding the evolutionary transformations and functional and ecological diversification of mesosoma across Formicidae.
DOI: 10.15102/0002000983
Author: Aibekova, Lazzat
Language: English
Subfield: Genetics
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7110785341
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