Concerted evolution, a slow process for ant satellite DNA: study of the satellite DNA in the Aphaenogaster genus (Hymenoptera, Formicidae)

A family of satellite DNA is analyzed in seven ant species from the genus Aphaenogaster. This satellite DNA is organized as tandemly repeated sequences with a consensus sequence of 160 bp in length. The sampled sequences show a high similarity and belong to the same family of satellite DNA. However in Aphaenogaster spinosa, two types of repeat clearly differentiated have been found. Phylogenetic analyses using satellite DNA show that sequences do not cluster in a species-specific way, with one exception. Concretely, the second type of repeats of A. spinosa (APSP-II) which constitutes a new satellite DNA subfamily. The obtained results with satellite DNA are compared with those obtained using mitochondrial and nuclear DNA to determine the correlation between evolution of satellite DNA and phylogenetic relationships among the analyzed ants. The high interspecific similarity for the satellite DNA seems not to be in concordance with the concerted evolution pattern, commonly accepted to explain the evolution of satellite DNA. However, the accumulated data suggest that evolution of satellite DNA in ants follows the concerted evolution pattern but that this process is slow in relation with other organisms, probably due to the eusociality and haplodiploidy of these insects.