Variation in genomic recombination rates among animal taxa and the case of social insects

Abstract

Meiotic recombination is almost universal among sexually reproducing organisms. Because the process leads to the destruction of successful parental allele combinations and the creation of novel, untested genotypes for offspring, the evolutionary forces responsible for the origin and maintenance of this counter-intuitive process are still enigmatic. Here, we have used newly available genetic data to compare genome-wide recombination rates in a report on recombination rates among different taxa. In particular, we find that among the higher eukaryotes exceptionally high rates are found in social Hymenoptera. The high rates are compatible with current hypotheses suggesting that sociality in insects strongly selects for increased genotypic diversity in worker offspring to either meet the demands of a sophisticated caste system or to mitigate against the effects of parasitism. Our findings might stimulate more detailed research for the comparative study of recombination frequencies in taxa with different life histories or ecological settings and so help to understand the causes for the evolution and maintenance of this puzzling process.

Recombination is associated with the evolution of genome structure and worker behavior in honey bees

“…Wilfert et al (5) suggested that the evolution of eusociality may select for high rates of recombination, which increase genotypic diversity in workers leading to increased colony fitness. Our study also suggests that higher recombination rates increase the evolutionary rate of genes associated with worker behavior, which may facilitate the evolution of worker specialization and elaboration after caste formation.…”

Recombination rate variation in closely related species

“…First, differential action of selection, or selection in changing environments, could give rise to differences between species (Chinnici, 1971;Charlesworth and Charlesworth, 1985;True et al, 1996). For example, artificial selection may have increased recombination rates in the domesticated species of chicken, honeybee and many plants (Rees and Dale, 1974;Burt and Bell, 1987;Otto and Barton, 2001;Ross-Ibarra, 2004;Wilfert et al, 2007;Groenen et al, 2009) in comparison with their wild progenitors.…”

“…Control of recombination rate appears to be multifaceted, with molecular, environmental and demographic factors all having a role (for example, see Wilfert et al, 2007; see also section 'Why would we see conservation of recombination rates between some species and not others?' below).…”

A comparison of recombination frequencies in intraspecific versus interspecific mapping populations of Nasonia

“…Genetic linkage maps are now available for many insect species (Wilfert et al, 2007;Hunter and Kole, 2008). However, high-density maps are still restricted to species whose genomes have been sequenced: fruit flies of the genus Drosophila (Chen et al, 2009), the yellow fever mosquito Aedes aegypti (Fulton et al, 2001), the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum (Lorenzen et al, 2005), the silkworm Bombyx mori (Yamamoto et al, 2006), and the honey bee Apis mellifera (Solignac et al, 2007).…”