Extended Data Fig. 7: Schematic representation of geographical constraint release following male domestication.
From: One mother for two species via obligate cross-species cloning in ants
a, M. ibericus queens require parasitizing sperm of M. structor to produce workers, i.e. obligate sperm parasitism. This is the initial situation, which is typically found in several other harvester ants12,17,18,32. b, M. ibericus queens can lay M. structor males cloned from the spermatozoids they regularly store in their spermatheca. This is akin to domestication, as M. ibericus favors the reproduction of a species they first exploited from the wild34. This intermediary situation is supported by our results, where areas in which both species still co-occur display M. ibericus workers fathered by either “domesticated” males (i.e.M. structor produced in “xenoparous” colonies of M. ibericus) or wild males (i.e.M. structor males produced in their own species’ colonies) (Fig. 3). c, M. ibericus can sustain a domesticated clonal lineage independently by producing M. structor males, which serve as a sperm source. This enables the production of new workers and males in subsequent generations, allowing M. ibericus to invade areas where M. structor does not naturally occur. This is a strict “xenoparous” reproductive mode, meaning that all workers are fathered by “domesticated” males laid by M. ibericus queens. This situation is widespread across Mediterranean Europe (Fig. 3, Supplementary Table 1 and Extended Data Fig. 3).
