Pnina Cohen from the Privman lab ran a population genomic analysis pipeline on the Hive to analyze a large-scale sequencing of population samples from the native range (South America) and the introduced range (USA) of two fire ants species.
The data included genomic sequencing (RAD-seq) of 835 ants sampled over many years by our collaborators from Florida, which resulted in 1.8 to 5 million sequences (RAD-tags) per ant.
Using these data, Pnina identified 169,682 polymorphic sites across the fire ant genome. These results are now used for detailed reconstruction of the demographic history of these populations.
This will also allow inference of natural selection pressures on specific genomic regions, indicating genes involved in local adaptation of these invasive ants to different environments. Pnina recently presented these results in a meeting in Helsinki of the International Union for the Study of Social Insects.
