Linked Life Data

15988525

Source:http://linkedlifedata.com/resource/pubmed/id/15988525

Statements in which the resource exists as a subject.
PredicateObject
rdf:type
lifeskim:mentions
pubmed:issue
7046
pubmed:dateCreated
2005-6-30
pubmed:abstractText
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.
pubmed:commentsCorrections
pubmed:language
eng
pubmed:journal
pubmed:citationSubset
IM
pubmed:chemical
pubmed:status
MEDLINE
pubmed:month
Jun
pubmed:issn
1476-4687
pubmed:author
pubmed:issnType
Electronic
pubmed:day
30
pubmed:volume
435
pubmed:owner
NLM
pubmed:authorsComplete
Y
pubmed:pagination
1230-4
pubmed:dateRevised
2010-11-18
pubmed:meshHeading
pubmed:year
2005
pubmed:articleTitle
Clonal reproduction by males and females in the little fire ant.
pubmed:affiliation
Centre de Biologie et de Gestion des Populations, INRA, Campus International de Baillarguet, CS 30 016, 34988 Montferrier/Lez Cedex, France. denis.fournier@ulb.ac.be
pubmed:publicationType
Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't