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Science 3 December 2004:
Vol. 306. no. 5702, pp. 1780 - 1783
DOI: 10.1126/science.1105453
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Reports

Conditional Use of Sex and Parthenogenesis for Worker and Queen Production in Ants

Morgan Pearcy,1 Serge Aron,1* Claudie Doums,2 Laurent Keller3

The near-ubiquity of sexual reproduction in animal species has long been considered a paradox because sexually reproducing individuals transmit only half of their genome to their progeny. Here, we show that the ant Cataglyphis cursor circumvents this cost by using alternative modes of reproduction for the production of reproductive and nonreproductive offspring. New queens are almost exclusively produced by parthenogenesis, whereas workers are produced by normal sexual reproduction. By selectively using sex for somatic growth and parthenogenesis for germline production, C. cursor has taken advantage of the ant caste system to benefit from the advantages of both sexual and asexual reproduction.

1 Behavioural and Evolutionary Ecology, CP 160/12, Université Libre de Bruxelles, av. F. D. Roosevelt 50, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium.
2 Fonctionnement et Evolution des Systèmes Ecologiques, Université Paris VI, 7 quai St. Bernard, 75252 Paris Cedex 05, France.
3 Department of Ecology and Evolution, Bâtiment de Biologie, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: saron{at}ulb.ac.be

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