Sib mating without inbreeding in the longhorn crazy ant.
Details
State: Public
Version: Final published version
Serval ID
serval:BIB_58DD4DCFB150
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Sib mating without inbreeding in the longhorn crazy ant.
Journal
Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
ISSN
1471-2954 (Electronic)
ISSN-L
0962-8452
Publication state
Published
Issued date
2011
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
278
Number
1718
Pages
2677-2681
Language
english
Notes
Publication types: Journal ArticlePublication Status: ppublish
Abstract
Sib matings increase homozygosity and, hence, the frequency of detrimental phenotypes caused by recessive deleterious alleles. However, many species have evolved adaptations that prevent the genetic costs associated with inbreeding. We discovered that the highly invasive longhorn crazy ant, Paratrechina longicornis, has evolved an unusual mode of reproduction whereby sib mating does not result in inbreeding. A population genetic study of P. longicornis revealed dramatic differences in allele frequencies between queens, males and workers. Mother-offspring analyses demonstrated that these allele frequency differences resulted from the fact that the three castes were all produced through different means. Workers developed through normal sexual reproduction between queens and males. However, queens were produced clonally and, thus, were genetically identical to their mothers. In contrast, males never inherited maternal alleles and were genetically identical to their fathers. The outcome of this system is that genetic inbreeding is impossible because queen and male genomes remain completely separate. Moreover, the sexually produced worker offspring retain the same genotype, combining alleles from both the maternal and paternal lineage over generations. Thus, queens may mate with their brothers in the parental nest, yet their offspring are no more homozygous than if the queen mated with a male randomly chosen from the population. The complete segregation of the male and female gene pools allows the queens to circumvent the costs associated with inbreeding and therefore may act as an important pre-adaptation for the crazy ant's tremendous invasive success.
Keywords
ants, parthenogenesis, inbreeding, invasiveness, reproductive strategies
Pubmed
Web of science
Create date
08/01/2011 20:08
Last modification date
20/08/2019 15:12