Extraordinarily precise nematode sex ratios: adaptive responses to vanishingly rare mating opportunities

Author:

Van Goor Justin123ORCID,Herre Edward Allen2,Gómez Adalberto2,Nason John D.3

Affiliation:

1. Department of Biology, University of Maryland College Park, College Park, MD 20742, USA

2. Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Unit 9100, Box 0948, DPO AA 34002-9998, Miami, FL 34002, USA

3. Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50010, USA

Abstract

Sex ratio theory predicts both mean sex ratio and variance under a range of population structures. Here, we compare two genera of phoretic nematodes ( Parasitodiplogaster and Ficophagus spp.) associated with 12 fig pollinating wasp species in Panama. The host wasps exhibit classic local mate competition: only inseminated females disperse from natal figs, and their offspring form mating pools that consist of scores of the adult offspring contributed by one or a few foundress mothers. By contrast, in both nematode genera, only sexually undifferentiated juveniles disperse and their mating pools routinely consist of 10 or fewer adults. Across all mating pool sizes, the sex ratios observed in both nematode genera are consistently female-biased (approx. 0.34 males), but markedly less female-biased than is often observed in the host wasps (approx. 0.10 males). In further contrast with their hosts, variances in nematode sex ratios are also consistently precise (significantly less than binomial). The constraints associated with predictably small mating pools within highly subdivided populations appear to select for precise sex ratios that contribute both to the reproductive success of individual nematodes, and to the evolutionary persistence of nematode species. We suggest that some form of environmental sex determination underlies these precise sex ratios.

Funder

National Science Foundation

Publisher

The Royal Society

Subject

General Agricultural and Biological Sciences,General Environmental Science,General Immunology and Microbiology,General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology,General Medicine

Reference54 articles.

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