Genetic reincarnation of workers as queens in the Eastern honeybee Apis cerana

Holmes, Michael J.; Tan, Ken; Wang, Zhengwei; Oldroyd, Benjamin P.; Beekman, Madeleine

doi:10.1038/hdy.2014.70

Cited by 9 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…This subspecies, like most other honey bee (sub)species is arrhenotokous (for some rare exceptions see Mackensen, 1943;DeGrandi-Hoffman et al, 1991;Holmes et al, 2015). Thus, when queenless Scutellata workers lay eggs they develop as haploid males (Hepburn and Crewe, 1990).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inheritance of thelytoky in the honey bee Apis mellifera capensis

Chapman

Beekman

Allsopp³

et al. 2015

Heredity

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Asexual reproduction via thelytokous parthenogenesis is widespread in the Hymenoptera, but its genetic underpinnings have been described only twice. In the wasp Lysiphlebus fabarum and the Cape honey bee Apis mellifera capensis the origin of thelytoky have each been traced to a single recessive locus. In the Cape honey bee it has been argued that thelytoky (th) controls the thelytoky phenotype and that a deletion of 9 bp in the flanking intron downstream of exon 5 (tae) of the gemini gene switches parthenogenesis from arrhenotoky to thelytoky. To further explore the mode of inheritance of thelytoky, we generated reciprocal backcrosses between thelytokous A. m. capensis and the arrhenotokous A. m. scutellata. Ten genetic markers were used to identify 108 thelytokously produced offspring and 225 arrhenotokously produced offspring from 14 colonies. Patterns of appearance of thelytokous parthenogenesis were inconsistent with a single locus, either th or tae, controlling thelytoky. We further show that the 9 bp deletion is present in the arrhenotokous A. m. scutellata population in South Africa, in A. m. intermissa in Morocco and in Africanized bees from Brazil and Texas, USA, where thelytoky has not been reported. Thus the 9 bp deletion cannot be the cause of thelytoky. Further, we found two novel tae alleles. One contains the previously described 9 bp deletion and an additional deletion of 7 bp nearby. The second carries a single base insertion with respect to the wild type. Our data are consistent with the putative th locus increasing reproductive capacity.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inheritance of thelytoky in the honey bee Apis mellifera capensis

Chapman

Beekman

Allsopp³

et al. 2015

Heredity

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“…The frequency of thelytokous parthenogenesis in European-derived Apis mellifera virgin queens after becoming queenless, can produce rare females among a majority of male-destined eggs (Gloag et al 2017), including females that are reared as queens (Holmes et al 2014).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In social Hymenoptera, thelytoky can occur in queens or workers and has profound consequences for the kin structure of insect societies. For example, worker thelytoky means that unmated laying workers can be genetically reincarnated as the next queen, increasing the potential for reproductive conflict between sisters (Greeff 1996a, b;Oldroyd 2014, 2018;Holmes et al 2014). Reincarnation means that the benefits of reproductive cheating by thelytokous workers are far greater than for arrhenotokous workers that can only produce males (Greeff 1996a, b;Beekman and Oldroyd 2008;Goudie and Oldroyd 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The frequency of thelytokous parthenogenesis in European-derived Apis mellifera virgin queens

Remnant

Oldroyd

2019

Apidologie

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Thelytokous parthenogenesis is the asexual production of female progeny. In the honey bee, Apis mellifera , thelytoky is unknown from mated queens, but can occur in virgin queens that have been induced to lay. We used microsatellite markers to quantify theltyoky in virgin A. mellifera queens of European origin that were sham inseminated with saline and/or narcotised with carbon dioxide. Of 20 queens, 17 (85%) produced at least one daughter thelytokously during an 8-week period. One exceptional queen produced 19% thelytokous progeny, though few total offspring (20 daughters in 107 pupae). The average proportion of thelytokous progeny among the remaining queens was 0.9% (range 0-3.5%), with the balance being males. These results are consistent with observations from the pre-molecular biology era that virgin honey bee queens of non-African subspecies regularly produce thelytokous offspring at low frequency and indicate that there is significant natural variation in the capacity for thelytoky among these queens.

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“…This study has shown that A. cerana workers are at least sometimes capable of thelytoky, as thelytoky by workers is the most parsimonious explanation for the origin of the contents of emergency queen cells (Figure 1) found in some of the colonies (Holmes et al, 2014b).…”

Section: What About Thelytoky?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…From an ecological perspective, one of the most significant findings of this thesis is that some A. cerana workers are capable of thelytoky (Holmes et al, 2014b). If thelytokous reproduction is rare in A. cerana, could it be that some thelytokous lineages invaded the Solomon Islands, New Guinea and then Australia?…”

Section: Investigating the Potential Effects Of Thelytoky In Invasivementioning

confidence: 99%