A High Incidence Of Parthenogenesis In Agricultural Pests

Main Category: Water - Air Quality / Agriculture
Also Included In: Biology / Biochemistry
Article Date: 23 Jul 2008 - 2:00 PDT

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Asexual reproduction is thought to be relatively more common in stable and constant environments than in variable environments where sexual reproduction predominates.

We therefore hypothesize that insect pests of the homogenous environments provided by crops, pastures and forests should be more likely to show asexual reproduction than insects generally.

This hypothesis was strongly supported using databases from North America and Italy: pest species were 4x as likely to reproduce asexually compared to insects overall.

This finding can be exploited for pest control - asexual pests will have difficulty overcoming control methods that require the evolution of changes at multiple genes.

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Proceedings B is the Royal Society's flagship biological research journal, dedicated to the rapid publication and broad dissemination of high-quality research papers, reviews and comment and reply papers. The scope of journal is diverse and is especially strong in organismal biology.

www.publishing.royalsociety.org/proceedingsb