The geography of sex: sexual conflict, environmental gradients and local loss of sex in facultatively parthenogenetic animals.

ABSTRACT: Obligately asexual organisms tend to occur at higher altitudes or latitudes and occupy larger ranges than their obligately sexual relatives-a phenomenon called geographical parthenogenesis. Some facultatively parthenogenetic organisms that reproduce both sexually and asexually also exhibit spatial variation in reproductive mode. Theory suggests that sexual conflict and mate limitation can determine the relative frequency of sex in facultative parthenogens, but the effect of these dynamics on spatial distributions is unknown. Here, we use individual-based models to investigate whether these dynamics can generate local differences in the reproductive mode in a facultatively parthenogenetic metapopulation occupying an environmental gradient. We find that selection for resistance and high fecu

SUBMITTER: Burke NW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6125730 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature