EVALUATION OF ELEVATED PLOIDY AND ASEXUAL REPRODUCTION AS ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATIONS FOR GEOGRAPHIC PARTHENOGENESIS IN EUCYPRIS VIRENS OSTRACODS |
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| Authors: | Sofia Adolfsson Yannis Michalakis Dorota Paczesniak Saskia N S Bode Roger K Butlin Dunja K Lamatsch Maria J F Martins Olivier Schmit Jochen Vandekerkhove Jukka Jokela |
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| Institution: | 1. EAWAG, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Department of Aquatic Ecology, überlandstrasse 133, CH‐8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland, and ETH‐Zürich, Institute of Integrative Biology (IBZ), Universit?tstrasse 16, CH‐8092 Zürich, Switzerland;2. GEMI, UMR CNRS IRD 2724, IRD, 911 avenue Agropolis, BP 64501, 34394 Montpellier CEDEX 5, France;3. E‐mail: sofia.adolfsson@eawag.ch;4. University of Sheffield, Animal and Plant Sciences, Western Bank, Sheffield S10 2TN, United Kingdom;5. RBINS, Department of Freshwater Biology, Rue Vautier 29, 1000 Brussels, Belgium;6. Institute for Limnology, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Mondseestr. 9. 5210 Mondsee, Austria;7. University of Gdańsk, Department of Genetics, K?adki 24, 80‐822 Gdańsk, Poland;8. Università degli studi di Parma, Dipartimento di Scienze Ambientali, Via G.P. Usberti 33a Campus, 43100 Parma, Italy;9. Università degli studi di Parma, Dipartimento di Scienze Ambientali, Via G.P. Usberti 33a Campus, 43100 Parma, Italy;10. University of Valencia, Dept. of Microbiology and Ecology, Av. Dr. Moliner 50, 46100 Burjassot, Spain |
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| Abstract: | Transitions from sexual to asexual reproduction are often coupled with elevations in ploidy. As a consequence, the importance of ploidy per se for the maintenance and spread of asexual populations is unclear. To examine the effects of ploidy and asexual reproduction as independent determinants of the success of asexual lineages, we sampled diploid sexual, diploid asexual, and triploid asexual Eucypris virens ostracods across a European wide range. Applying nuclear and mitochondrial markers, we found that E. virens consists of genetically highly differentiated diploid sexual populations, to the extent that these sexual clades could be considered as cryptic species. All sexual populations were found in southern Europe and North Africa and we found that both diploid asexual and triploid asexual lineages have originated multiple times from several sexual lineages. Therefore, the asexual lineages show a wide variety of genetic backgrounds and very strong population genetic structure across the wide geographic range. Finally, we found that triploid, but not diploid, asexual clones dominate habitats in northern Europe. The limited distribution of diploid asexual lineages, despite their shared ancestry with triploid asexual lineages, strongly suggests that the wider geographic distribution of triploids is due to elevated ploidy rather than to asexuality. |
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| Keywords: | Colonization geographic polyploidy mitochondrial divergence polyphyletic |
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