comlete separation among matrallines in a social spider infered by hapervariable mt DNA

Complete separation along matrilines in a social spider metapopulation inferred from hypervariable mitochondrial DNA region

I.AGNARSSON,*??§W.P.MAD DISON?§and L.AVILE

′S?*Institute of Biology,Scienti?c Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts,Novi trg 2,PO Box 306,SI-1001Ljubljana,Slovenia,?Department of Biology,University of Puerto Rico,PO Box 23360,San Juan,PR 00931-3360,

USA,?Department of Zoology,The University of British Columbia,2370-6270University Boulevard,Vancouver,BC,V6T 1Z4,Canada,§Department of Botany,The University of British Columbia,3529-6270University Boulevard,Vancouver,BC,V6T 1Z4,Canada

Abstract

The distribution and quantity of genetic diversity may be profoundly influenced by the emergence and dynamics of social groups.Permanent social living in spiders has resulted in the subdivision of their populations in more or less isolated colony lineages that grow,proliferate and become extinct without mixing with one another.A newly discovered hypervariable mitochondrial DNA region allowed us to examine the fine scale metapopulation structure in the social Anelosimus eximius .We sampled 39colonies in Ecuador and French Guiana and identified 25haplotypes.The majority of colonies contained one haplotype.Additional haplotypes occurred in approximately 15%of the colonies,and were always closely related to the common colony haplotype.Our findings confirm that colonies consist of single matrilines,with within-colony variation explained by mutations within the matriline.We thus found no evidence of mixing of matrilines.Likewise,colonies in a cluster often shared a haplotype,implying common colony ancestry.In few cases,however,haplotypes were shared between more distant colonies,providing evidence for occasional longer distance dispersal and ?or widespread colony lineages.The geographical localities of colonies were incongruent with phylogenetic trees and haplotype networks,showing that some areas contained two or more matrilines.Hence,females do not migrate into foreign colonies,but faithfully remain within their own colony lineage,even when they disperse into new areas.These results indicate that the fine scale metapopulation structure of pure matrilines is maintained over the long term and that colony turnover is not extensive or radical enough to homogenize entire geographical areas.Genetic diversity is thus preserved to some extent at the metapopulation level.

Keywords :Anelosimus eximius,dispersal,inbred-social,matrilines,population structure Received 15June 2008;revision received 8April 2010;accepted 15April 2010

Introduction

The structuring of genetic diversity within species is in?uenced not only by environmental factors that con-trol the sizes,ranges and fragmentation of populations (Bay et al.2008;Kamiya et al.2008;Ortega et al.2008),

but potentially also by behaviours that in?uence dis-persal and breeding relationships (Hughes 1998;Storz 1999;Barrett et al.2008).Social behaviour,in particular,may play a critical role in shaping the structure of genetic diversity in animal populations by causing members of one or both sexes to become associated in more or less permanent social groups (Storz 1999;Ross 2001;Hoelzel et al.2008).Depending on the extent to which the social systems of males and females overlap,

Correspondence:I.Agnarsson,Fax:7877642610;E-mail:iagnarsson@https://www.docsj.com/doc/1211608355.html,

Molecular Ecology (2010)19,3052–3063doi:

10.1111/j.1365-294X.2010.04681.x

and on how social and breeding system relate to each other,such structuring may signi?cantly in?uence the course of microevolutionary change(Storz1999;Ross 2001)and the long-term evolutionary potential of many animal species(e.g.Agnarsson et al.2006).In addition to introducing a new level of selection(Hamilton1964; Wilson1975;Maynard Smith&Szathma′ry1995;Ross 2001),the structuring of genetic diversity within and among groups may also change the balance between drift and selection by increasing the chances of?xation of random alleles when long-lived and expanding groups are established by few individuals(Storz1999). Whether the net effect is increased or decreased genetic diversity in the overall metapopulation will in turn depend on the dynamics of group turnover and associ-ated drift and selection at the level of the groups.In the long term,sociality may either increase evolutionary potential by allowing the colonization of new adaptive zones(Wilson1987)or,in the cases when it is accompa-nied by inbreeding,it may constitute an evolutionary dead-end(Aviles1997;Agnarsson et al.2006).The study of sociality-modulated structuring is thus impor-tant to understand the set of evolutionary forces that shape many social animal species.

Although sociality could provide impetus for inbreed-ing,in general social organisms are outbred(Pusey& Wolf1996;Cockburn1998;Storz1999;Ross2001).And, although in many social species dispersal is often lim-ited to short distances which may increase population genetic structuring,it seems suf?cient to maintain genetic mixing at the species level(e.g.Lepais et al. 2010).Notably unusual in this regard are the non-territorial permanent social(sensu Aviles1997)or, simply,social spiders(Aviles1997;Lubin&Bilde2007). Phylogenetic studies suggest that permanent sociality in spiders evolved by elimination of the dispersal phase that preceded mating in subsocial ancestral species (Johannesen&Lubin1999,2001;Agnarsson2004,2006; Agnarsson et al.2006;Johannesen et al.2007).Prior behavioural and genetic studies(Lubin&Robinson 1982;Riechert&Roeloffs1993;Smith&Engel1994; Smith&Hagen1996;Johannesen et al.2002,2007,2009) suggest that social spider colony lineages typically propagate with little or no mixing with one another. Colonies that reach a certain size give rise to daughter colonies by either?ssioning,budding,or the emigration of single,or a small group of inseminated females (Aviles1997,2000;Crouch&Lubin2001;Lubin& Robinson1982;Roeloffs&Riechert1988).The origin of spider sociality from outbred subsocial ancestors thus simultaneously altered population structure and breed-ing system(Riechert&Roeloffs1993;Aviles1997; Lubin&Bilde2007).In other social systems,close and permanent inbreeding has only been documented in the eusocial mole rats(Jarvis et al.1994),thrips(Chapman et al.2000),and perhaps some ants that are social para-sites or have atypical reproductive modes(reviewed in Ross2001).Termites alternate phases of inbreeding and outbreeding(Shellman-Reeve1997)and are thus quite distinct from the social spiders.Somewhat similar to the highly inbred social spiders are some clonal social insects,such as aphids,as clonality results in strong population genetic structuring.However,aphids differ from the social spiders in high levels of movement and frequent mixing of clones on host plants(Abbot2009). Aphids also alternate sexual and asexual phases(Hales et al.1997).

Driven by a high rate of colony turnover,evidenced by short lived colonies and colony replacement(Aviles 1993;Smith&Hagen1996),the strongly subdivided population structure of the permanent-social spiders may result in suf?ciently strong intercolony selection to produce and maintain the highly female-biased sex ratios characteristic of the majority of species(Aviles 1993,1997,1999).Other putative explanations of sex ratio bias,such as local mate competition,are insuf?-cient as theoretical modelling predicts that within the colony lineages sex ratios should return towards a1:1 equilibrium in the absence of intercolony selection (Aviles1993).With some lineages proliferating and oth-ers going extinct,rapid colony turnover could then lead to some lineages sweeping through local areas.Thus, while population subdivision and inbreeding should lead to low genetic variability within the colony lin-eages(Johannesen et al.2002,2007,2009),the latter pro-cess could result in a loss of genetic variability at the metapopulation or even species level(Aviles1997), possibly leading to depressed diversi?cation over long-term evolution(Agnarsson et al.2006).Accord-ingly,allozyme studies have found allelic variation in social spiders to be generally low(see Table12.5in Riechert&Roeloffs1993),and mostly limited to among-colony variation(Lubin&Crozier1985;Roeloffs &Riechert1988;Smith&Engel1994;Smith&Hagen 1996).

The multiple origins of inbred sociality in spiders (Aviles1997;Bilde et al.2005;Agnarsson2006;Agnars-son et al.2006;Aviles et al.2006;Johannesen et al. 2007;Lubin&Bilde2007)provide an opportunity to study the short-and long-term evolutionary conse-quences of both sociality and inbreeding.Social origins are scattered across the order(Aviles1997;Agnarsson et al.2006;Lubin&Bilde2007),but occur most fre-quently in two distantly related lineages,a group of cobweb spiders(Theridiidae)and in the genus Stegody-phus(Eresidae).Despite their vast phylogenetic dis-tance,these lineages both have produced social species that are strikingly similar in their social structure.This

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represents a unique opportunity to study the conse-quences of sociality and inbreeding both across related species where sociality has arisen in parallel,as well as across distantly related lineages that,convergently,are prone to generate these parallel social species.However, while theridiids have been relatively well studied phy-logenetically(Agnarsson2003,2004;Arnedo et al.2004, 2007),their population genetic structure is less well known,aside from allozymes(Smith&Engel1994; Smith&Hagen1996).In Stegodyphus,in contrast,popu-lation genetics studies are more advanced(Johannesen et al.2002,2007,2009).

Our goal here is to understand the population genet-ics consequences of sociality in Anelosimus eximius,one of the best known social theridiid spiders.Previous studies on allozymes in A.eximius(Smith&Engel1994; Smith&Hagen1996)point to population subdivision, but they lack resolution because of the relatively low genetic variability of allozyme markers.Here we exam-ine the patterns of genetic diversity in A.eximius,in part using a hypervariable mitochondrial DNA region, nested within the16S ribosomal RNA loci in our study species A.eximius,whose discovery we report here.We test two primary hypotheses regarding female dispersal and nest?delity:(i)that colonies primarily contain sin-gle matrilineages,thus showing that population subdi-vision has led to the structuring of genetic variability mostly among,rather than within colonies and,(ii)that relationships among haplotypes re?ect the geographical distribution of colonies,as would be the case if high rates of colony turnover led to single haplotypes sweep-ing through local areas by either group-level drift or selection.

Methods

We sampled204individuals from38A.eximius colonies (Table1)in Ecuador(2003–2005)and one colony from near Cayenne,French Guiana(2005).Colonies were visually searched for along transects in each area.Sam-pled colonies ranged in size from approximately50to 2500adult females.To examine the correspondence of haplotype distribution within and among colonies with their geographical locality we sampled colonies at vari-ous geographical scales.Colonies were sampled along an approximately30km segment of the Cuyabeno River(Sucumbios region,0.021–0.097S,76.133–76.337W, 2003and2005)and an approximately20km transect along the road Jondachi–Loreto(Ecuador,Napo region, 0.7103–0.727S,77.585–77.757W,2005),and in Jatun Sacha(Napo region,approx.1.067S,77.617W,2004),all on the E slope of the Andes in Northern Ecuador (Fig.1).Colonies were also sampled from southern Ecuador(Morona Santiago,Limo′n,approximately 2.9833S,78.3667W,2003)and from the W slope of the Andes(Pedro Vincente,0.08–0.10N79.03–79.07).To serve as outgroups for phylogenetic analyses10speci-mens of the related social species A.domingo were sam-pled in Ecuador,from Jatun Sacha(colonies JS04JSD-1, -2,and-3),and Pedro Vincente(colonies PV04X-1and -2).Distances between colonies ranged from a few meters(colonies within the same colony cluster)to 3000km(southwestern Ecuador to French Guiana). Figure1shows the distribution of sampling areas in Ecuador.Voucher specimens are deposited at the University of British Columbia.GenBank accession numbers for the specimens are:FJ743932–FJ744066. Specimens were placed in95%ethanol in the?eld and upon return to the laboratory,kept frozen at )80°C until DNA extraction.For details of DNA extraction and PCR protocol see Agnarsson et al.(2007). PCR products were puri?ed and sequenced by the Macrogen Inc.(ABI3730)sequencer and proofread using the Chromaseq module(Maddison&Maddison, unpublished)in Mesquite(Maddison&Maddison2009) (further details in Agnarsson et al.2007).We sequenced from3to12individuals per colony,although in some cases only a single individual was successfully sequenced.We sequenced a single804-bp long(aligned) mitochondrial fragment obtaining partial sequences of the16S and ND1genes.This region is documented to show intraspeci?c variability in spiders(Hedin1997; Agnarsson et al.2007;Johannesen et al.2007). Sequences were aligned using ClustalX(Thompson et al.1997)with gap opening?gap extension costs set to 24?6following prior work(Maddison&Hedin2003). Two other alignments were made using MacClade (Maddison&Maddison2005)by(i)adjusting the clus-tal alignment in obviously misaligned regions mostly near the sequence ends,and manually aligning the ‘microsatellite’region(Fig.3);and(ii)further modify-ing the latter alignment by minimizing the number of gaps in the microsatellite region,under the assumption that it mostly contains terminal repeats.

Secondary structure of the16S RNA sequence was implied using the RNAfold web server(http:// rna.tbi.univie.ac.at/cgi-bin/RNAfold.cgi),to structurally locate the microsatellite region.

Our primary purpose here is to address female move-ment and matrilineage separation.However,in order to get at male movement we explored two nuclear loci, 28S and ITS2.To scan for potentially informative varia-tion,sequences of26individuals were obtained for28S, and of10individuals for ITS2,in both cases sampling specimens that span the maximum observed mitochon-drial variability.However,the nuclear data had almost no variability.28S showed zero genetic variability among the sampled specimens.For ITS2only two base

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T a b l e 1L i s t o f h a p l o t y p e s a n d g e o g r a p h i c a l l o c a t i o n (f r o m e a s t t o w e s t )o f c o l o n i e s o f A .E x i m i u s .C o l o u r e d b o x e s i d e n t i f y p h y l o g e n e t i c l i n e a g e s ,m a t c h i n g c o l o r s i n F i g u r e 2.N =t h e n u m b e r o f s p i d e r s s a m p l e d p e r c o l o n y (F =f e m a l e s ,M =m a l e s ,j u v (s )=j u v e n i l e (s )

)

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positions showed parsimony-informative variation,and those two were in con?ict,indicating homoplasy.These loci thus are not informative at the population level in A.eximius ,and further sampling of these nuclear loci was thus abandoned.

Phylogenetic reconstruction of sequences and haplo-types was performed in PAUP 4.08(Swofford 1999)using parsimony with equal weights,either excluding indels,or treating gaps as a ?fth state.Analyses were run with 1000constrained random addition sequence searches using TBR branch rearrangements;the trees resulting were then used as starting points for an unconstrained TBR search limited only by MAXTREES of 100000.

Haplotype networks were constructed using the CombineTrees software (Cassens et al.2005)utilizing all the most parsimonious trees from the phylogenetic analysis,and in a statistical parsimony framework using TCS (Clement et al.2000).

Population genetic structure was calculated with an AMOVA in Arlequin 3.1.1(Excof?er et al.2005).We esti-mated the distribution of variation within and among populations,and calculated ?xation indices.

Geographic and genetic distance matrices were gener-ated in Mesquite,and correlation between geographic and genetic distances between colonies was tested with the MANTEL statistic,using Mantel Nonparametric Test Calculator Version 2.0(Liedloff 1999).Analyses were run both with the full dataset,as well as a pruned dataset.The data were pruned (and restricted to Ecua-dor)to test if correlation between geographic and genetic distances detected in the full dataset could be explained exclusively by the geographic clustering of identical colonies (colonies sharing the same haplo-types)that are expected to be the progeny of the same mother colony.By representing identical colonies within

regions only once,we could test if different haplotypes within regions tend to be more similar than when com-paring haplotypes among regions.

The program Estimates 8.2.0(Colwell 2006)was used to estimate expected total number of haplotypes in the entire sampling,as well as within individual colonies,using the Chao1statistic.

Results Haplotypes

Among the 204individuals sequenced from 39colonies,we identi?ed 25haplotypes (Table 1),whose phyloge-netic relationships are shown in Fig.2.Changes within a single hyper-variable region (51bp aligned)within the 16S gene separated many of the haplotypes (the aligned data are available as a Nexus ?le from the ?rst author,and as Appendix S1,Supporting Information).This region spans bases 395–446in the aligned matrix (Fig.3,matrix available online and from the authors)and is characterized mostly by microsatellite-like repeats of the motif ‘TA’(really UA,as these are RNA

Cuyabeno Limon

Jatun Sacha

Loreto Pedro Vincente

Fig.1Geographic distribution of sampling areas in Ecuador.

H7 - Cuyabeno, French Guiana H20 - Pedro Vincente H16 - Limon H24 - Limon H2 - Cuyabeno H8 - Cuyabeno H4 - Cuyabeno H25 - Cuyabeno

H3 - Cuyabeno H21 - Jatun Sacha H23 - Loreto H22 - Loreto H19 - Loreto H18 - Loreto H17 - Loreto H15 - Limon H12 - Cuyabeno

H11 - Jatun Sacha, Loreto H10 - Cuyabeno H9 - Cuyabeno H6 - Cuyabeno H5 - Cuyabeno H14 - Jatun Sacha H13 - Cuyabeno H1 - Cuyabeno

100

86

54

70

64

64

60

Fig.2Phylogenetic relationships among the 25haplotypes (H),and their geographic distribution.Colours mark phyloge-netic lineages,matching the colour scheme used to represent colonies sampled from Cuyabeno (see Fig.3),additionally the Loreto lineage is marked in red so that all lineages correspond to colouring of Table 1.Numbers on nodes are bootstrap sup-port values.It is notable that there is virtually no character con?ict in the data (consistency index =0.99,retention index =1),suggesting that relatively low bootstrap values are due to few data,not con?icting hypotheses.

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sequences)that differs dramatically among individuals (Fig.3,Supporting Information).Secondary structure reconstruction(Appendix S3,Supporting Information) suggests that the TA repeats form a portion of a stem, where T and A match up.Hence,individuals differ in the length of this stem in the16S ribosome.This would explain why the sequences always differ by a TA repeat,rather than a single base pair as might be expected if this were a loop region.This region of TA repeats is much shorter and varies little in length in A. domingo and other Anelosimus species(Agnarsson et al. 2007,in preparation),hence it appears to be hypervari-able only in A.eximius.

Of the25haplotypes one was sampled only in a sin-gle individual,the others were sampled twice or more. Chao1estimates25.13haplotypes in the system with the95%upper bound con?dence interval at25.18. Hence,we do not expect numerous unsampled haplo-types to occur in the sampled colonies.Likewise,in the vast majority of cases,within colonies and colony com-plexes sharing haplotypes,the expected number of haplotypes is the observed(see Appendix S2,Support-ing Information),using the Chao195%upper bound CI.Nevertheless,we expect that within some of the most poorly sampled colonies we have missed haplo-types.Our prediction would be that missing haplotypes represent single-mutational variation of the more common colony haplotype,as observed in several better sampled colonies.

The majority of colonies contained only a single hap-lotype in the sampled specimens(Table1).In such cases each colony typically either had a unique haplo-type(e.g.JS-03-JSE6-0,LO-05-28.5-0)or shared a haplo-type with a nearby colony in the same,or a nearby colony cluster(e.g.CU-05-R14-1and R14-2,CU-03-23-1 and23-2).In some cases haplotypes were shared among more distant colonies,either in geographic proximity (e.g.JS-03-JSE2-2from Jatun Sacha and LO-05-3.3-0 from Loreto approximately42km apart)or distant (CU-03-b4-1from Cuyabeno Ecuador and the colony from French Guiana,approximately3000km apart). Approximately18%of the colonies contained two hapl-otypes;one colony contained three haplotypes.In all but one case the second,rarer,haplotype differed from the other haplotype found within the colony by a single two base pair long‘repeat’in the microsatellite-like region.In the colony that had three haplotypes,the third haplotype differed from the other two by an eight adjacent bases-putatively a single four‘repeats’long insertion.

H1

H10

H12

H13

H25

H3

H4

H5

H6

H7

H8

H9

H2

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In two cases colonies with more than one haplotype shared one,but not the other(s)with a neighbouring colony(Fig.3).In each case the haplotypes involved were only one‘repeat’motif different from each other. Alignment and haplotype phylogeny and network

The majority of the indel events,or gaps,were impli-cated in the microsatellite-like region that is seemingly characterized by repeated insertions and?or deletions of mostly‘TA’(motif repeats Fig.3,Supporting Informa-tion).Therefore,it is near impossible to detect which repeats arose independently and which may be homolo-gous across taxa,this region will be particularly prone to homoplasy under any given alignment scheme.Fur-ther,treating gaps as characters will increase the weight of this homoplastic region.We therefore preferred anal-yses that exclude indels,favouring information from unambiguously aligned regions.In support of this pref-erence,phylogenetic analyses that used gaps as a?fth state(treating each two base pair‘gap’as a single event)resulted in gaps being in con?ict with unambigu-ously aligned sequence variation.Furthermore,remov-ing this region altogether yielded nearly identical results as analyses ignoring gaps.

Parsimony analyses of the sequence data,ignoring gaps,resulted in six equally most parsimonious trees (70steps;consistency index0.986;retention index 0.995),the strict consensus of which is shown in Fig.2 (collapsing groups with less than50%Bootstrap sup-port).The alternative alignments gave near identical results(not shown,matrices available from?rst author). The most parsimonious trees were translated into a haplotype network(Fig.4).The phylogeny and haplo-type network poorly re?ect geographic localities of colo-nies(Figs3and4).While some areas more or less cluster(e.g.Loreto),consistent with the presence of a single matrilineage in the area and haplotype diversi?-cation occurring among related colonies,other areas, such as Jatun Sacha and Cuyabeno,contain two or more phylogenetically distinct haplotypes.Haplotypes of different phylogenetic lineages never co-occurred in any single colony.The haplotype network obtained with the TCS method broadly agreed with the Com-bineTrees network,although more dif?cult to interpret because of numerous reticulations.Nevertheless,the conclusion from the TCS analysis is the same,the hap-lotype network poorly re?ects geographic localities of colonies.

The AMOVA con?rms strong population structure,with less than5%of genetic variation found within colonies (%var.=4.25,sum of squares=37.7, d.f.=166)and very high?xation index(F ST=0.96,P<0.0001). Geographic and genetic distances were correlated in the full dataset(G=4.87,Z=39608.8,r=0.239, P=0.01).However that correlation was due exclusively to the clustering of identical colonies within regions. When considering each haplotype within a region only once,there is no correlation between geographic and genetic distances of the different haplotypes found within and among regions(G=0.936,Z=332.8, r=)0.01,P=0.27).

Nuclear data

The small nuclear datasets collected(available from author upon request)showed nearly no intraspeci?c genetic variation,even across specimens with high mitochondrial sequence divergence.These nuclear loci have insuf?cient variation to resolve population level

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structure such that further sampling was not deemed fruitful.

Discussion

Behaviour,such as sociality and breeding systems can profoundly affect the structure of populations and metapopulations,and,in turn,alter the distribution and quantity of genetic diversity(Ross2001;Ansell et al. 2008;Barrett et al.2008;Bay et al.2008;Hoelzel et al. 2008;Kamiya et al.2008;Ortega et al.2008).As sociality often leads to reduced dispersal of at least one of the sexes,it reduces random mating within and among populations.Our results broadly con?rm a highly sub-divided matrilineage metapopulation structure of the social spider A.eximius that leads to repackaging of genetic variability,thereby corroborating the hypothesis that colonies contain single matrilines(Johannesen et al. 2009).Thus sociality has led to the structuring,at least of female inherited mitochondrial genetic variability mostly among,rather than within colonies(hypothesis 1).Much of the observed haplotype variation,and hence our ability to infer population history,rests within the newly discovered microsatellite-like region in A.eximius,where other Anelosimus species tend to be quite uniform(Agnarsson et al.2007).This region seems to evolve very rapidly,and is characterized by insertions(and probably also deletions)of repeats of a ‘TA’motif,although other point mutations clearly also occur in this area(Fig.3).

We found strong population subdivision(F ST=0.96), with extremely low within-colony variability—typically a single haplotype—but considerable between-colony differentiation.The little within-colony variability found typically consisted of a second rarer haplotype differing from the more common one by a single‘TA’motif repeat in the microsatellite-like region.Such haplotypes most likely arose by single mutations within the colony lineage.As indicated by the Chao1statistic,undersam-pling of colonies and haplotypes is unlikely to be an important confounding factor.The Chao1statistic indi-cates that in the system as a whole and in the vast majority of cases within colonies,sampling was ade-quate,with the estimated number of haplotypes equal-ling the observed.We can still expect to have missed haplotypes,especially in those colonies sampled by four or less individuals.However,none of the polymorphic colonies that were relatively well sampled showed a pattern suggestive of intercolony mixing.We thus sus-pect that even if additional haplotypes were to be uncovered in the less extensively sampled colonies,it is unlikely that they will exhibit a pattern dramatically different from that seen in the better sampled ones.Our data,therefore,suggest colony propagation by single matrilineages and an absence of colony mixing,at least involving female migration,as also seen in the distantly related inbred-social Stegodyphus(Johannesen et al. 2002,2007,2009;Bilde et al.2005).Colonies within the same nest cluster,or up to a few tens of meters away, typically shared the same haplotype(Fig.3;Table1), suggesting they were derived from the same ancestral colony via budding or short distance dispersal.

In two interesting cases colonies much farther apart shared the same unique haplotype.Haplotypes were shared between a colony from Jatun Sacha(JS-03-JSE2-2)and one from Loreto(LO-05-3.3-0),localities found approximately42km apart,and between a colony from Cuyabeno,Ecuador(CU-03-b4-1)and the colony from French Guiana,found3000km apart.These cases are suggestive of either a widespread lineage occupying,in the past or present,areas between the two localities or of dispersal over relatively large distances.We consider the latter possibility less likely,however,as nearly all observations or inferences of dispersal in this species are by colony budding or walking of one or a number of individuals over short distances.Note that although homoplasy cannot be ruled out in either case,it seems much less likely than identity by descent.In the case of the Jatun Sacha and Loreto colonies homoplasy would have involved converging on identical sequences of over800bp,an unlikely possibility unless the sequences were very recently identical by descent,in which case relatedness is indicated anyway.The argu-ment against homoplasy is even stronger for the Cuyab-eno and French Guiana colonies.The unique haplotype that these colonies shared differed from all others not only in the microsatellite region(where convergence is likely),but also in a number of point mutations along the entire804-bp long sequence.Furthermore,individu-als from both of these colonies ampli?ed at atypically low success rates,suggesting that this haplotype differs from all others in the region where the primers bind. The single specimen from the Cuyabeno colony that we were able to amplify was processed prior to the collec-tion of the colony in French Guiana,ruling out misla-belling or contamination.These?ndings,along with the observation that the Ecuadorian specimens of this hap-lotype looked rather different from those typical in the area(adult females were smaller in size and more brightly coloured than typical A.eximius,L.Aviles?eld observation)suggest that the French Guianan and Cuy-abeno CU-03-b4-1specimens belong to a lineage that has been separate from the others here studied long enough to have accumulated phenotypic differences. Nevertheless,there is zero genetic variability between these mitochondrial lineages in the nuclear28S sequences.Sampling intervening areas will cast further light on the occurence of this haplotype in Ecuador.

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Typically,however,colonies within a region were not homogenous in the haplotypes they contained.In addi-tion to haplotypes belonging to the same phylogenetic lineage,and thus probably derived from a common matriline,some regions contained phylogenetically dis-tinct haplotypes even for colonies found in relatively close geographical proximity(Fig.3and Table1). Hence,apart from immediate colony neighbours,the haplotype phylogeny(Fig.2)and the haplotype net-work(Fig.4)poorly re?ect geographical localities of, and distance between,colonies.Similarly,the genetic distance between these distinct haplotypes,and distance between the colonies that contain them were not corre-lated.Both observations lead to rejection of hypothesis 2.For example,Cuyabeno contains at least two distinct haplotype lineages that seem not closely related(Figs2 and3).These two lineages are shuf?ed at a?ne geo-graphic scale in this area while no single colony con-tains individuals representing both lineages(Fig.3). This pattern offers clear evidence that even in areas with more than one matriline,they rarely,if ever,mix. Rather,areas seem to have been colonized indepen-dently by different matrilineages that both have become widespread and interspersed in the region. Haplotypes from one of the areas(Loreto),however, did approximately cluster,consistent with the pres-ence of a single matrilineage in this area and haplo-type diversi?cation occurring between related colonies. Thus,although the Loreto area was not strictly monophyletic as it shared a haplotype with a colony in Jatun Sacha,the shared haplotype could have belonged to the same colony lineage as other colonies in Loreto,or possibly even been ancestral to them,as implied by the haplotype network(Fig.4).Overall, however,the strong population subdivision and struc-turing evidenced by our haplotype data indicate that area-wide‘sweeps’—single genotypes rapidly spread-ing through entire areas(by either drift or selection) and replacing other lineages—have not occurred recently in the areas we sampled most densely,as sweeps would have rendered entire areas mostly,or entirely,monomorphic.

Taken together the high correspondence between individual colony membership and haplotype,the pres-ence of more than one haplotype lineage in some areas, lack of correlation between geographic and genetic dis-tances of distinct haplotypes,and high?xation index (F ST=0.96),all indicate a highly subdivided metapopu-lation structure where female colony members remain ‘faithful’to their matriline even when invading novel areas,but where no single lineage comes to replace all others,even within relatively small local areas.The observation that the most densely sampled areas con-tained haplotypes of diverse phylogenetic origin (Fig.3)suggests that area-wide sweeps that would cause some lineages to replace all others in an area have not occurred recently in the areas sampled.

The extent to which female faithfulness translates to mating between close relatives within the colony lin-eages will depend on the extent to which males also remain within their natal nests to mate(e.g.Bilde et al. 2005).Being inherited through the maternal line,our mitochondrial data do not allow us to make inferences about the history of gene?ow among colonies because of male migration,but can be used to infer recent male migration events.In our case,25%of our mitochondrial sequences belonged to males.In all cases male haplo-types were congruent with female haplotypes in their respective colonies,suggesting absence of recent male migration.We are in the process of con?rming this inference using nuclear microsatellite markers (L.Aviles,unpublished).Sequence data of two nuclear markers we obtained(28S,ITS2)were unfortunately uninformative for this level of analysis.The near com-plete lack of sequence variation observed at these nuclear markers,however,when contrasted with the relatively normal levels of sequences divergence found in the same markers in related outbred subsocial spe-cies(Agnarsson et al.unpublished),is consistent with a pattern of strong population subdivision and lineage turnover in A.eximius.Further evidence of lack of male movement between colonies comes from allozyme data (Smith&Hagen1996),preliminary analyses of micro-satellite data(Aviles et al.unpublished),and from the strongly female-biased sex ratios characteristic of this species(Avile′s&Maddison1991;Aviles1993). Overall,the consequences of inbred sociality in spi-ders can best be described by considering various time scales.In the short term,the faithful matrilineal descent of social spider colonies generates a highly structured population with a severe reduction in diversity within colony lineages(Smith&Hagen1996;Johannesen et al. 2009).Over the medium term,however,the species sur-vives and retains considerable genetic diversity both within a region and across its range:broad selective sweeps are not implicated.Phylogenetic studies,how-ever,suggest that medium term success does not trans-late to long term evolutionary potential,as social spider species lineages apparently either fail to speciate or fail to persist(Agnarsson et al.2006;Johannesen et al. 2007).

Acknowledgements

We are indebted to the Museo Ecuatoriano de Ciencias Natu-rales for sponsoring our research in Ecuador and the Instituto Ecuatoriano de Areas Naturales y Vida Silvestre(Ecuador)for collecting permits.We are grateful to Patricio Salazar,Gabriel

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Iturralde,and Jessica Purcell for help collecting specimens,and to Carol Ritland,Karen Needham,and Laura May-Collado for help with the molecular work.This research was funded by grants from the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to L.A and W.P.M,and a Killam postdoc-toral fellowship and a Slovenian Research Agency grant(Z1-9799-0618-07)to I.A.We are grateful to eight anonymous reviewers and Dr Brent Emerson for comments that improved the manuscript.

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I.A.studies a variety of topics including systematic,morphol-ogy,genetics,and behaviour of spiders,web evolution and biomechanical properties of spider silks,and phylogeny and evolution of mammals.W.P.M.studies spider phylogeny and evolution,theoretical approaches to understanding evolu-tionary history,and computational methods to implement them.L.A.is an evolutionary ecologist interested in under-standing the forces that bring together individuals into social groups and the short and long term consequences of social evolution.Current areas of research include the ecology and biogeography of sociality,the interplay between kinship and demography in shaping the diversity of animal societies,the role of selection at multiple levels in evolution,and sociality and community ecology.

Supporting Information

Additional supporting information may be found in the online version of this article.

Appendix S1The aligned data matrix.

Appendix S2List of haplotypes(as in Table1)and estimates of the total expected number of haplotypes within individual colonies and within colony complexes sharing haplotypes, based on the Chao1statistic.

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Appendix S3Secondary reconstruction of the16S ribosome for two A.eximius individuals,chosen as exemplars with very short(CU O5R1413)and very long(CU03514)‘microsatel-lite’region.This region is indicated with a circle,showing that increased number of the TA repeats translate into a longer stem.The color bar indicates base-pair probabilities.Please note:Wiley-Blackwell are not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors.Any queries(other than missing material)should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.

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