Waves of parthenogenesis in the desert: evidence for the parallel loss of sex in a grasshopper and a gecko from Australia

doi:10.1111/j.1365-294X.2006.02898.x

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Wiley InterScience

Molecular Ecology

Volume 15 Issue 7, Pages 1743 - 1748

Published Online: 16 Mar 2006

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Waves of parthenogenesis in the desert: evidence for the parallel loss of sex in a grasshopper and a gecko from Australia

MICHAEL KEARNEY*, MARK J. BLACKET**, JARED L. STRASBURG†§ and CRAIG MORITZ‡

*Department of Zoology, Centre for Environmental Stress and Adaptation Research, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia, **Department of Genetics/Centre for Environmental Stress and Adaptation Research, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia, †Washington University, Department of Biology, St Louis, MO 63130, USA, ‡Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA

Correspondence: Michael Kearney, Fax: +61 38344 7089; E-mail: mrke@unimelb.edu.au.

§Present address: Indiana University, Department of Biology, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA

KEYWORDS

Australian arid zone • DNA sequence data • hybridization • parallel evolution • parthenogenesis • sex

ABSTRACT

The rarity of parthenogenesis, reproduction without sex, is a major evolutionary puzzle. To understand why sexual genetic systems are so successful in nature, we must understand why parthenogenesis sometimes evolves and persists. Here we use DNA sequence data to test for similarities in the tempo and mode of the evolution of parthenogenesis in a grasshopper and a lizard from the Australian desert. We find spectacular congruence between genetic and geographic patterns of parthenogenesis in these distantly related organisms. In each species, parthenogenesis evolved twice and appears to have expanded in parallel waves across the desert, suggesting a highly general selective force against sex.

Received 27 September 2005; revision accepted 7 January 2006

DIGITAL OBJECT IDENTIFIER (DOI)

10.1111/j.1365-294X.2006.02898.x About DOI

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