lecture 14 Flashcards
Sexual reproduction
characteristic of eukaryotes, and involves reproduction with meiosis and syngamy (fusion of gametes)
Sexual reproduction results in new genotypes due to…
- independent assortment of chromosomes
- crossing over
Sex in bacteria & viruses refers to what?
exchange of DNA
how we define sex
Parthenogenetic (asexual) reproduction
“virgin birth”
not requiring exchange and mating with, with other individuals and fusion of gametes,
Has evolved in dependently many times and in many different ways
facultative parthenogenesis
not always parthenogenetic/asexual
able to do both
obligate parthenogenesis
always parthenogenetic/asexual
Example: Amazon mollies (Poecilia formosa)
reproduce parthenogenetically, but require sperm from males of closely-related species to trigger development
females product asexual clones of eachother but need male sperm to trigger the development
parthenogens are…
highly successful and abundant (and many pests, weeds, invasives)
Case study: A high incidence of parthenogenesis
in agricultural pests
Wanted to count for every different family of insects, what percent of species are Parthenon genetic and then of every of every
pest species in that family, what percent are Parthenon genetic
Case study: A high incidence of parthenogenesis
in agricultural pests
Figure
- each data point is a different family of insects from N. America
- for one data point (look at graph): ~25% of the species in this family are parthenogens, but 80% of the species in this family that are pests are parthenogens
Case study: A high incidence of parthenogenesis
in agricultural pests
results
if parthenogenesis is as frequent in pest species as in non- pest species, then a straight line with a slope of 1 is expected
* but instead we see all the families of different insects are way above the one to one to the left so they are over represented
* A higher percentage of them are of the ones that are pests-> A higher percentage of Parthenon genetic
Even though parthenogenetic lineages are found across the tree of life, they are long-lived/short-lived over evolutionary time scales
short-lived
they are found on the tips of evolutionary trees
Parthenogenesis is self-destructive for scaled reptiles MO Moreira, C Fonseca, D Rojas (2021) Biology Letters 17, 20210006
- scaled reptiles (Squamata) are the only vertebrates that repeatedly evolved parthenogenesis (39 described true parthenogens)
- performed a phylogenetic analysis and mapped mode of reproduction on the tree
Results of MO Moreira, C Fonseca, D Rojas experiment
asexual reproduction parthenogenesis on the phylogenetic tree
on the tips, always evolved and arising but never last
why?
they tend to go extinict faster than sexual reproducing ones
What are the benefits of parthenogenetic (asexual) reproduction?
what prof said:
- faster rate of growth (two fold cost of sex
- reproductive assurance
- no need to invest in expensive traits involved in sexual reproduction
- avoid STIs and other risks and costs of mating
- preserves successful genotypes
The two-fold cost of sex
- If a sexually-reproducing female has 50% sons, then half of her resources have gone into offspring that can’t bear any offspring themselves!
- An asexual mutant will double in frequency every generation
the benefits of sexual reproduction and the disadvantages of parthenogenetic
- Two ways to make new genotypes:
- new mutations
- new combinations (recombination, reassortment)
- Recombination brings beneficial mutations together
- Recombination breaks associations with deleterious mutations