Adaptive, caste-specific changes to recombination rates in a thelytokous honeybee population.

Proceedings. Biological Sciences
Benjamin P OldroydMadeleine Beekman

Abstract

The ability to clone oneself has clear benefits-no need for mate hunting or dilution of one's genome in offspring. It is therefore unsurprising that some populations of haplo-diploid social insects have evolved thelytokous parthenogenesis-the virgin birth of a female. But thelytokous parthenogenesis has a downside: the loss of heterozygosity (LoH) as a consequence of genetic recombination. LoH in haplo-diploid insects can be highly deleterious because female sex determination often relies on heterozygosity at sex-determining loci. The two female castes of the Cape honeybee, Apis mellifera capensis, differ in their mode of reproduction. While workers always reproduce thelytokously, queens always mate and reproduce sexually. For workers, it is important to reduce the frequency of recombination so as to not produce offspring that are homozygous. Here, we ask whether recombination rates differ between Cape workers and Cape queens that we experimentally manipulated to reproduce thelytokously. We tested our hypothesis that Cape workers have evolved mechanisms that restrain genetic recombination, whereas queens have no need for such mechanisms because they reproduce sexually. Using a combination of microsatellite genotyping and whole-...Continue Reading

References

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Aug 31, 2007·Molecular Biology and Evolution·Julien FoucaudArnaud Estoup
Dec 1, 2007·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Lyndon A JordanMadeleine Beekman
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Jun 16, 2010·Molecular Ecology·Michael J HolmesMadeleine Beekman
Nov 4, 2010·Evolution; International Journal of Organic Evolution·Benjamin P OldroydMadeleine Beekman
Jun 8, 2012·Evolution; International Journal of Organic Evolution·Frances GoudieBenjamin P Oldroyd
Jan 1, 2014·Evolution; International Journal of Organic Evolution·Frances GoudieBenjamin P Oldroyd
Jun 10, 2016·PLoS Genetics·Andreas WallbergMatthew T Webster
Nov 6, 2018·Molecular Ecology·Katharine L Korunes, Mohamed A F Noor
Nov 11, 2018·Journal of Evolutionary Biology·Nicholas M A SmithBenjamin P Oldroyd

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