Cytogenetic basis of thelytoky in Apis mellifera capensis

Cole-Clark, Miles P.; Barton, Deborah; Allsopp, Michael H.; Beekman, Madeleine; Wossler, Theresa C.; Ronai, Isobel; Smith, Norman C.; Reid, R. J.; Oldroyd, Benjamin P.

doi:10.1007/s13592-017-0505-7

Cited by 13 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 44 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Though subfertile, workers can activate their ovaries in the absence of a queen, and in some exceptional cases, like the Cape honey bee Apis mellifera capensis , the BClone^in South Africa, and the Banarchistic worker^phenotype originally found in colonies in Australia, they can also do so in the presence of the queen. In Capensis workers and those of the Clone, worker reproduction is associated with a specific switch in developmental modes, i.e., between arrhenotoky and thelytoky (Goudie and Oldroyd 2014;Goudie et al 2015;Cole-Clark et al 2017). But examples of arrhenotokous worker reproduction, as in the anarchistic workers, are seen as an exception in the genus Apis .…”

Section: Ovarian Activity In Adult Honey Beesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The ovary and its genes—developmental processes underlying the establishment and function of a highly divergent reproductive system in the female castes of the honey bee, Apis mellifera

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The strong dimorphism in ovary phenotype seen between honey bee queens and workers represents the anatomical fixation of reproductive division of labor. We review the developmental processes by which the divergent ovary phenotypes become established, mainly focusing on the massive programmed cell death (PCD) that destroys most of the ovariole primordia in the worker ovary during larval development. Ovary-specific transcriptome analyses revealed a set of differentially expressed genes associated with PCD, including two long noncoding RNAs. PCD also plays a major role regulating ovarian activity in adult honey bee workers, and a major effect candidate gene mediating this process is Anarchy , previously identified through classical genetics in a rebel worker strain. Finally, we ask how the strong ovary phenotype dimorphism in the genus Apis may have evolved, and we discuss this by contrasting honey bees with the equally eusocial stingless bees. Through a comparison of their mating systems (polyandry versus monandry), as well as comparative data on female and male gonad structure across several families of bees, we propose the hypothesis that the exceptional gonad structure in Apis queens and drones evolved via shared developmental pathways. Furthermore, we suggest that selection on massive sperm production in Apis drones may have been a driving force leading to this exaggerated gonad morphology. honeybee / gonad development / cell death / differential gene expression / meliponids Where does the spirit of the hive reside? At least to some extent it is in the ovaries of a crowd of bees working in a dark hive (Robert E.

show abstract

Section: Ovarian Activity In Adult Honey Beesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The ovary and its genes—developmental processes underlying the establishment and function of a highly divergent reproductive system in the female castes of the honey bee, Apis mellifera

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Diploidy is then restored by the fusion of the two central pronuclei (Stenberg & Saura, 2009;Suomalainen, Saura, & Lokki, 1987). Due to the fusion of the central products, the pronuclei involved are descended from the two alternate products of meiosis I (Cole-Clark et al, 2017) (Figure 1). In the absence of meiotic recombination, the maternal allelic state is maintained in the offspring.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Strikingly high levels of heterozygosity despite 20 years of inbreeding in a clonal honey bee

Smith

Wade

Allsopp

et al. 2018

J of Evolutionary Biology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Inbreeding (the mating between closely related individuals) often has detrimental effects that are associated with loss of heterozygosity at overdominant loci, and the expression of deleterious recessive alleles. However, determining which loci are detrimental when homozygous, and the extent of their phenotypic effects, remains poorly understood. Here, we utilize a unique inbred population of clonal (thelytokous) honey bees, Apis mellifera capensis, to determine which loci reduce individual fitness when homozygous. This asexual population arose from a single worker ancestor approximately 20 years ago and has persisted for at least 100 generations. Thelytokous parthenogenesis results in a 1/3 of loss of heterozygosity with each generation. Yet, this population retains heterozygosity throughout its genome due to selection against homozygotes. Deep sequencing of one bee from each of the three known sub‐lineages of the population revealed that 3,766 of 10,884 genes (34%) have retained heterozygosity across all sub‐lineages, suggesting that these genes have heterozygote advantage. The maintenance of heterozygosity in the same genes and genomic regions in all three sub‐lineages suggests that nearly every chromosome carries genes that show sufficient heterozygote advantage to be selectively detrimental when homozygous.

show abstract

“…Following oviposition, the primary oocyte completes meiosis I to produce the two secondary oocytes. These then undergo second division meiosis resulting in four maternal pronuclei ( Verma and Ruttner 1983 ; Cole-Clark et al 2017 ). In most subspecies three of the four maternal pronuclei degenerate ( Snodgrass 1956 ).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Viable Triploid Honey Bees (Apis mellifera capensis) Are Reliably Produced in the Progeny of CO2 Narcotised Queens

Oldroyd

Aamidor

Buchmann

et al. 2018

G3 Genes|Genomes|Genetics

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The haplodiploid system of sex determination of Hymenoptera acts as an exaptation for species to evolve novel forms of asexual reproduction including thelytoky (clonal offspring of the mother). During normal reproduction in Hymenoptera, three of the four products of meiosis that are present in newly-laid eggs are lost as polar bodies, while the remaining pronucleus either develops as a haploid male or fuses with a sperm nucleus to produce a diploid zygote. In contrast, in thelytokous reproduction, which is uncommon but taxonomically widespread, two of the four products of meiosis fuse, as if one acted as a sperm. Queenless workers of Apis mellifera capensis, a subspecies of honey bee from South Africa, routinely reproduce thelytokously. Unmated A. m. capensis queens can also be induced to lay thelytokously by narcosis with carbon dioxide, but mated queens are never thelytokous. We artificially inseminated A. m. capensis queens using CO2 narcosis. Up to 1/3 of offspring workers carried two maternal alleles and an allele of one father whereas no three-allele progeny were seen in control queens of the arrhenotokous (unfertilized eggs result in males) subspecies A. m. scutellata. Flow cytometry of three-allele individuals revealed that they were triploid and arose from the fertilization of a thelytokous fusion nucleus. We then reared six queens from a narcotized A. m. capensis queen and determined the ploidy of the offspring queens based on microsatellites. One of the five daughters was triploid. Following artificial insemination, this queen produced unfertilized thelytokous diploid eggs at high frequency, and unfertilized triploid eggs at much lower frequency. If fertilized, thelytokous diploid eggs were non-viable, even though triploidy in itself does not impede normal development. In contrast, when the rarer triploid eggs were fertilized, a proportion developed into viable tetraploids. Our study highlights the extraordinary developmental flexibility of haplo-diploid systems.

show abstract

Cytogenetic basis of thelytoky in Apis mellifera capensis

Cited by 13 publications

References 44 publications

The ovary and its genes—developmental processes underlying the establishment and function of a highly divergent reproductive system in the female castes of the honey bee, Apis mellifera

The ovary and its genes—developmental processes underlying the establishment and function of a highly divergent reproductive system in the female castes of the honey bee, Apis mellifera

Strikingly high levels of heterozygosity despite 20 years of inbreeding in a clonal honey bee

Viable Triploid Honey Bees (Apis mellifera capensis) Are Reliably Produced in the Progeny of CO2 Narcotised Queens

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About