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MBE Advance Access published online on August 28, 2007
Molecular Biology and Evolution, doi:10.1093/molbev/msm180
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Sex and Clonality in the Little Fire Ant

Julien Foucaud1,*, Denis Fournier1,2, Jérôme Orivel3, Jacques H. C. Delabie4, Anne Loiseau1, Julien Le Breton3, Gaël J. Kergoat1 and Arnaud Estoup1

1 INRA, UMR CBGP (INRA / IRD / Cirad / Montpellier SupAgro), Campus international de Baillarguet, CS 30016, F-34988 Montferrier-sur-Lez cedex, France
2 present address: Behavioral and Evolutionary Ecology - CP 160/12, Université Libre de Bruxelles, 50 av. F.D. Roosevelt, 1050 Brussels, Belgium
3 Laboratoire Evolution et Diversité Biologique, UMR-CNRS 5174, Université Toulouse III, 118 route de Narbonne, 31062 Toulouse cedex 4, France
4 Laboratório de Mirmecologia, CEPEC-CEPLAC & UESC, 45650-000 Ilhéus, Bahia, Brazil

* To whom correspondence should be addressed: Julien Foucaud, UMR CBGP, Campus international de Baillarguet, CS 30016, F-34988 Montferrier-sur-Lez cedex, France, Tel.:+33499623346, E-mail: foucaud{at}supagro.inra.fr

Received for publication June 14, 2007. Revision received August 20, 2007. Accepted for publication August 22, 2007.

Reproduction systems are controlling the creation of new genetic variants as well as how natural selection can operate on these variants. Therefore they had historically been one of the main foci of evolutionary biology studies. The little fire ant, Wasmannia auropunctata, has been found to display an extraordinary reproduction system, in which both males and female queens are produced clonally. So far, native sexual populations of W. auropunctata have not been identified. Our goals were to identify such sexual populations and investigate the origins of female parthenogenesis and male clonality. Using mtDNA and microsatellite markers in 17 native populations, we found that traditional sexual populations occurred in W. auropunctata and are likely the recent source of neighboring clonal populations. Queen parthenogenesis has probably evolved several times through mutational events. Male clonality is tightly linked to queen parthenogenesis and thus appears to be female controlled. Its origin could be accounted for by two mutually exclusive hypotheses: either by the expected co-evolution of the two sexes (i.e. a variant of the maternal genome elimination hypothesis), or by a shared mechanistic origin (i.e. by the production of anucleate ovules by parthenogenetic queens). Our results also show that W. auropunctata males and females do not form separate evolutionary units and are unlikely to be engaged in an all-out battle of sexes. This work opens up new perspectives for studies on the adaptive significance and evolutionary stability of mixed sexual and clonal reproduction systems in living organisms.

Key Words: reproduction system • sex • parthenogenesis • male clonality • Wasmannia auropunctata


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