When does the female bias arise? Insights from the sex determination cascade of a flea beetle with a strongly skewed sex ratio.

ABSTRACT: Reproduction-manipulating bacteria like Wolbachia can shift sex ratios in insects towards females, but skewed sex ratios may also arise from genetic conflicts. The flea beetle Altica lythri harbors three main mtDNA strains that are coupled to three different Wolbachia infections. Depending on the mtDNA types, the females produce either offspring with a balanced sex ratio or exclusively daughters. To obtain markers that can monitor when sex bias arises in the beetle's ontogeny, we elucidated the sex determination cascade of A. lythri. We established a RT-PCR method based on length variants of dsx (doublesex) transcripts to determine the sex of morphologically indistinguishable eggs and larvae. In females of one mtDNA type (HT1/HT1*) known to produce only daughters, male offspring were alrea

SUBMITTER: Rohlfing K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10066108 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature