Population-level consequences of complementary sex determination in a solitary parasitoid.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Sex determination mechanisms are known to be evolutionarily labile but the factors driving transitions in sex determination mechanisms are poorly understood. All insects of the Hymenoptera are haplodiploid, with males normally developing from unfertilized haploid eggs. Under complementary sex determination (CSD), diploid males can be produced from fertilized eggs that are homozygous at the sex locus. Diploid males have near-zero fitness and thus represent a genetic load, which is especially severe under inbreeding. Here, we study mating structure and sex determination in the parasitoid Cotesia vestalis to investigate what may have driven the evolution of two complementary sex determination loci in this species.

Results

We genotyped Cotesia vestalis females collect

SUBMITTER: de Boer JG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4461988 | biostudies-literature | 2015 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature