Journal article
Sex loss in insects: causes of asexuality and consequences for genomes
Current opinion in insect science, Vol.31, pp.77-83
02/2019
DOI: 10.1016/j.cois.2018.11.007
Abstract
•Why sex is maintained in natural populations remains a fundamental question in evolutionary biology, with several hypotheses having been proposed and tested.•Despite the diversity of reproductive systems among insects, there have been few comparative studies of sexual versus asexual lineages.•Next-generation sequencing datasets enable genome-level investigation of the causes and consequences of sex loss.
Boasting a staggering diversity of reproductive strategies, insects provide attractive models for the comparative study of the causes and consequences of transitions to asexuality. We provide an overview of some contemporary studies of reproductive systems in insects and compile an initial database of asexual insect genome resources. Insect systems have already yielded some important insights into various mechanisms by which sex is lost, including genetic, endosymbiont-mediated, and hybridization. Studies of mutation and substitution after loss of sex provide the strongest empirical support for hypothesized effects of asexuality, whereas there is mixed evidence for ecological hypotheses such as increased parasite load and altered niche breadth in asexuals. Most hypotheses have been explored in a select few taxa (e.g. stick insects, aphids), such that much of the great taxonomic breadth of insects remain understudied. Given the variation in the proximate causes of asexuality in insects, we argue for expanding the taxonomic breadth of study systems. Despite some challenges for investigating sex in insects, the increasing cost-effectiveness of genomic sequencing makes data generation for closely-related asexual and sexual lineages increasingly feasible.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Sex loss in insects: causes of asexuality and consequences for genomes
- Creators
- Eric S Tvedte - Institute for Genome Sciences, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United StatesJohn M Logsdon - Department of Biology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, United StatesAndrew A Forbes - Department of Biology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, United States
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Current opinion in insect science, Vol.31, pp.77-83
- Publisher
- Elsevier Inc
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.cois.2018.11.007
- ISSN
- 2214-5745
- eISSN
- 2214-5753
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 02/2019
- Academic Unit
- Biology; University College Courses
- Record Identifier
- 9984217543102771
Metrics
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