Clonality

Abstract

About 99.9% of vertebrate species reproduce sexually. This makes the exceptional 0.1%—the asexual or clonal reproducers—fascinating in their own right, and also uniquely instructive about the biological significance of alternative reproductive modes. This book describes the genetics, ecology, natural history, and evolution of all of the world's approximately 100 “species” of vertebrate animal that routinely display one form or another of clonal or quasi-clonal reproduction. The book investigates the astounding realm of sexual abstinence, from the levels of DNA molecules and somatic cells to whole animals and natural populations. Also described is how scientists have learned to mimic and extend nature's own clonal processes by engineering perfect copies of genes, genomes, and whole animals in the laboratory. By considering the many facets of sexual abstinence and clonal reproduction in vertebrate animals, new light is also shed on the biological meaning and ramifications of standard sexuality.

Simultaneous Mendelian and clonal genome transmission in a sexually reproducing, all-triploid vertebrate

“…Similarly, the duplication of the NOR2 in female Batura toads occurs through a gametogenetic mechanism (premeiotic endomitosis) that is well known from parthenogenetic and hybridogenetic vertebrates [23,45,46]. However, the Batura toad system seems unique among vertebrates in that (i) meiotic processes differ between sexes, and (ii) females simultaneously transmit one genome that is clonally duplicated, and another that undergoes normal meiosis.…”

Genetic basis and biotechnological manipulation of sexual dimorphism and sex determination in fish

“…Polyploid gibel carp, Carassius auratus gibelio, because of the existence of a minor but significant portion of males in natural populations and the discovery of multiple modes of unisexual gynogenesis and sexual reproduction in some gynogenetic clones [23], has been noted extensively [12,24]. Through a series of studies, various gynogenetic clones and the clone-specific genetic markers have been identified, and used to perform studies on the evolutionary and ecological genetics [2533].…”

High male incidence and evolutionary implications of triploid form in northeast Asia Carassius auratus complex

“…However, most of unisexual vertebrates, such as kleptogenetic Ambystoma salamanders (Bi and Bogart, 2010;Spolsky et al, 1992), hybridogenetic Poeciliopsis fish (Quattro et al, 1992), gynogenetic Amazon molly (Lampert and Schartl, 2008;Schartl et al, 1995), Phoxinus eosneogaeus hybrids (Angers and Schlosser, 2007), and gynogenetic Cobitis (Janko et al, 2003), have been revealed to have long history and large ranges of geographical distribution (Avise, 2008). And, high genetic diversity has been extensively observed in gynogenetic or hybridogenetic fish (Angers and Schlosser, 2007;Cunha et al, 2011;Schmidt et al, 2011;Stöck et al, 2012), kleptogenetic amphibians (Bi and Bogart, 2010) and parthenogenetic reptiles (Fujita et al, 2007;Kupriyanova, 2009).…”