Skip to main content

Asexual Ants maintain Genetic Diversity

How do asexual ants maintain genetic diversity?



It’s commonly accepted wisdom that genetic diversity is vital for the survival of a species, and sexual reproduction helps maintain this diversity. But what happens when a species doesn’t reproduce sexually? Usually, it’s a recipe for low genetic diversity and a ticket to extinction. Yet, in the realm of clonal raider ants, this doesn’t seem to be the case. Why so?

Genetic diversity of clonal raider ants

To give you some context, the clonal raider ant is a blind, queenless creature found in tropical settings around the globe.

The species is originally native to Bangladesh and reproduces through parthenogenesis. This type of asexual reproduction results in offspring that inherit two sets of genetically identical chromosomes from the mother – in other words, clone daughters.

Now, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this should lead to a drastic loss in genetic diversity and, over time, species collapse. But these resilient little creatures are confounding expectations and surviving – and flourishing – quite well.

Kip Lacy, a graduate fellow in the Laboratory of Social Evolution and Behavior, and his mentor Daniel Kronauer are the faces behind this discovery. They found out that the clonal raider ant doesn’t leave gene transmission to chance.

Instead, it ensures that offspring inherit two different versions of its complete genome, thus preserving the genetic diversity existing in the ancient founder of each clonal line.

Diving deeper into the mystery

Under normal circumstances, chromosomes mix randomly during meiosis, a kind of cell division resulting in sperm and egg cells. This, however, doesn’t seem to be the case with our ant friends.


Variation
Alleles
Gene Pool
Heterozygosity
Polymorphism
Genetic Drift
Gene Flow
Mutation
Selection
Bottleneck Effect
Founder Effect
Adaptation
Speciation
Inbreeding
Outbreeding
Hybridization
Conservation Genetics
Population Genetics
Genotype
Phenotype

#GeneticDiversity
#Biodiversity
#GeneticVariation
#Alleles
#GenePool
#Heterozygosity
#Polymorphism
#GeneticDrift
#GeneFlow
#Mutation
#NaturalSelection
#BottleneckEffect
#FounderEffect
#Adaptation
#Speciation
#Inbreeding
#Outbreeding
#Hybridization
#ConservationGenetics
#PopulationGenetics

International Conference on Genetics and Genomics of Diseases

Visit: genetics-conferences.healthcarek.com

Award Nomination: x-i.me/gennom1
Award registration: x-i.me/genreg2
Member Nomination: x-i.me/genmember
Member Registration: x-i.me/genreg1
For Enquiries: genetics@healthcarek.com


Get Connected Here
---------------------------------
---------------------------------

Pinterest: x-i.me/genpt
Twitter: x-i.me/gentw
Facebook: x-i.me/genfb
Instagram: x-i.me/genin
Youtube: x-i.me/genyt
Blogger: x-i.me/genbl

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fruitful innovation

Fruitful innovation: Transforming watermelon genetics with advanced base editors The development of new adenine base editors (ABE) and adenine-to-thymine/ guanine base editors (AKBE) is transforming watermelon genetic engineering. These innovative tools enable precise A:T-to-G and A:T-to-T base substitutions, allowing for targeted genetic modifications. The research highlights the efficiency of these editors in generating specific mutations, such as a flowerless phenotype in ClFT (Y84H) mutant plants. This advancement not only enhances the understanding of gene function but also significantly improves molecular breeding, paving the way for more efficient watermelon crop improvement. Traditional breeding methods for watermelon often face challenges in achieving desired genetic traits efficiently and accurately. While CRISPR/Cas9 has provided a powerful tool for genome editing, its precision and scope are sometimes limited. These limitations highlight the need for more advanced gene-e...
Post a Comment
Read more

Genetic factors with clinical trial stoppage

Genetic factors associated with reasons for clinical trial stoppage Many drug discovery projects are started but few progress fully through clinical trials to approval. Previous work has shown that human genetics support for the therapeutic hypothesis increases the chance of trial progression. Here, we applied natural language processing to classify the free-text reasons for 28,561 clinical trials that stopped before their endpoints were met. We then evaluated these classes in light of the underlying evidence for the therapeutic hypothesis and target properties. We found that trials are more likely to stop because of a lack of efficacy in the absence of strong genetic evidence from human populations or genetically modified animal models. Furthermore, certain trials are more likely to stop for safety reasons if the drug target gene is highly constrained in human populations and if the gene is broadly expressed across tissues. These results support the growing use of human genetics to ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Genetic Test

Genetic test eliminates progressive retinal atrophy in English shepherd dogs Researchers at the University of Cambridge recently published their findings in Genes after identifying the genetic mutation that is causing progressive retinal atrophy (PRA) in English shepherd dogs. PRA is a group of inherited diseases causing progressive degeneration of the light sensitive cells within the back of the eyes. When it comes to PRA in dogs, they are born with normal vision but by the age of 4-5 they go totally blind with no treatment. According to the release, by identifying the canines carrying this disease before they lose vision, this can be then used as a tool to guide breeding decisions to prevent the passing of the disease onto puppies.1 Historically, owners did not realize their dog had PRA until they were middle-aged, which means it could have been passed on to puppies if they had bred, making this a hard disease to control. “Once the dog’s eyesight starts to fail there’s no treatment ...
Post a Comment
Read more