Journal Article

Clonal reproduction by males and females in the little fire ant

Le Breton, Julien, Keller, Laurent, Orivel, Jérôme, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD [Réunion]), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Estoup, Arnaud, Centre de Biologie pour la Gestion des Populations (UMR CBGP) ; Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (Cirad)-Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-Centre international d'études supérieures en sciences agronomiques (Montpellier SupAgro)-Université de Montpellier (UM)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD [Occitanie])-Institut national d’études supérieures agronomiques de Montpellier (Montpellier SupAgro), Jourdan, Herve, Fournier, Denis, Foucaud, Julien, Department of Ecology and Evolution ; Université de Lausanne = University of Lausanne (UNIL), University of the Ryukyus [Okinawa]

2005

Overview

Sexual reproduction can lead to major conflicts between sexes and within genomes1, 2, 3, 4. 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

• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group,CCSD,Nature Publishing Group UK,Nature Publishing
• Subject: Alleles / Animal and plant ecology / Animal reproduction / Animal, plant and microbial ecology / Animals / Ants - genetics / Ants - physiology / asexual reproduction / Biological and medical sciences / Biological Evolution / Cellular Biology / clonal reproduction / clones / Cloning / Demecology / Diploidy / DNA - analysis / DNA - genetics / Eggs / Female / Females / Formicidae / Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology / Gene Frequency / Gene loci / genetic markers / Genome / Genotype / Genotype & phenotype / haplodiploidy / Haploidy / Heredity / Humanities and Social Sciences / insect pests / insect reproduction / Insects / letter / Life Sciences / loci / Male / males / microsatellite repeats / Microsatellite Repeats - genetics / Models, Genetic / multidisciplinary / Offspring / Pedigree / Protozoa. Invertebrata / queen insects / Reproduction / Reproduction - genetics / Reproduction - physiology / Science / Science (multidisciplinary) / Sexes / Sexual Behavior, Animal - physiology / sexual reproduction / Spermatozoa - metabolism / Wasmannia auropunctata / worker insects
• ISBN: 0002301405000