Laboratory generation of new parthenogenetic lineages supports contagious parthenogenesis inArtemia

Abstract

Contagious parthenogenesis—a process involving rare functional males produced by a parthenogenetic lineage which mate with coexisting sexual females resulting in fertile parthenogenetic offspring—is one of the most striking mechanisms responsible for the generation of new parthenogenetic lineages. Populations of the parthenogenetic diploid brine shrimp Artemia produce fully functional males in low proportions. The evolutionary role of these so-called Artemia rare males is, however, unknown. Here we investigate whether new parthenogenetic clones could be obtained in the laboratory by mating these rare males with sexual females. We assessed the survival and sex ratio of the hybrid ovoviviparous offspring from previous crosses between rare males and females from all Asiatic sexual species, carried out cross-mating experiments between F1 hybrid individuals to assess their fertility, and estimated the viability and the reproductive mode of the resulting F2 offspring. Molecular analysis confirmed the parentage of hybrid parthenogenetic F2. Our study documents the first laboratory synthesis of new parthenogenetic lineages in Artemia and supports a model for the contagious spread of parthenogenesis. Our results suggest recessive inheritance but further experiments are required to confirm the likelihood of the contagious parthenogenesis model.

Rare diploid females coexist with rare males: a novel finding in triploid parthenogenetic populations in the psyllid Cacopsylla myrtilli (W. Wagner, 1947) (Hemiptera, Psylloidea) in northern Europe

“…This phenomenon, known as contagious parthenogenesis (Simon et al 2003), has been analyzed in detail in diploid parthenogenetic Artemia (brine shrimp) lineages (Maccari et al 2013) and in Daphnia pulex (Paland et al 2005). The formation of parthenogenesis of this type has also been experimentally demonstrated in the laboratory in Daphnia (Innes and Herbert 1988), aphids (Blackman 1972) and Artemia (Maccari et al 2014).…”

An overview on the nomenclatural and phylogenetic problems of native Asian brine shrimps of the genus Artemia Leach, 1819 (Crustacea, Anostraca)

“…The molecular divergence analysis has indicated that a recent population expansion in A. urmiana and "Eurasian Haplotype Complex" occurred in the Pleistocene (1.72 Mya) and Holocene (0.84 Mya), respectively. Males of parthenogenetic Artemia (produced only by diploids; Saleem Chang et al 2017) are fertile when mating with bisexual A. sinica, A. tibetiana, A. urmiana and KAZ (Cai 1993;Liu et al 2007;Maccari et al 2014), but not fertile when mating with the female of the other bisexual species (Mac-Donald and Browne 1987). Parthenogenetic females mating with males produce only parthenogenetic offspring (Barigozzi 1974).…”

What does the geography of parthenogenesis teach us about sex?

“…Alternatively, the generation of new asexual genotypes can still be ongoing, for instance via mutation [64], continuing hybridization of, or with, the sexual parents [65], contagious asexuality via endosymbiont transmission [66] or rare crossings with sexuals (e.g. [42] in hermaphrodite flatworms; [67] in Daphnia and [68] in Artemia owing to rare parthenogenetic sons), or forms of 'parasex' [69] such as horizontal gene transfer between individuals (bdelloid rotifers, see [70]) or introgression of environmental DNA (anhydrobiotic rotifers or tardigrades [71]). …”