Clonal reproduction by males and females in the little fire ant
Details
State: Public
Version: author
Serval ID
serval:BIB_4B6DEB46C264
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Clonal reproduction by males and females in the little fire ant
Journal
Nature
ISSN
1476-4687
Publication state
Published
Issued date
06/2005
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
435
Number
7046
Pages
1230-4
Notes
Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't --- Old month value: Jun 30
Abstract
Sexual reproduction can lead to major conflicts between sexes and within genomes. Here we report an extreme case of such conflicts in the little fire ant Wasmannia auropunctata. We found that sterile workers are produced by normal sexual reproduction, whereas daughter queens are invariably clonally produced. Because males usually develop from unfertilized maternal eggs in ants and other haplodiploid species, they normally achieve direct fitness only through diploid female offspring. Hence, although the clonal production of queens increases the queen's relatedness to reproductive daughters, it potentially reduces male reproductive success to zero. In an apparent response to this conflict between sexes, genetic analyses reveal that males reproduce clonally, most likely by eliminating the maternal half of the genome in diploid eggs. As a result, all sons have nuclear genomes identical to those of their father. The obligate clonal production of males and queens from individuals of the same sex effectively results in a complete separation of the male and female gene pools. These findings show that the haplodiploid sex-determination system provides grounds for the evolution of extraordinary genetic systems and new types of sexual conflict.
Keywords
Alleles Animals Ants/*genetics/*physiology DNA/analysis/genetics Diploidy Evolution Female Gene Frequency Genome Genotype Haploidy *Heredity Male Microsatellite Repeats/genetics Models, Genetic Pedigree Reproduction/*genetics/*physiology Sexual Behavior, Animal/physiology Spermatozoa/metabolism
Pubmed
Web of science
Open Access
Yes
Create date
24/01/2008 19:40
Last modification date
20/08/2019 14:59