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Habitat heterogeneity favors asexual reproduction in natural populations of grassthrips
Author(s) -
Lavanchy Guillaume,
Strehler Marie,
Llanos Roman Maria Noemi,
LessardTherrien Malie,
Humbert JeanYves,
Dumas Zoé,
Jalvingh Kirsten,
Ghali Karim,
Fontcuberta GarcíaCuenca Amaranta,
Zijlstra Bart,
Arlettaz Raphaël,
Schwander Tanja
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
evolution
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.84
H-Index - 199
eISSN - 1558-5646
pISSN - 0014-3820
DOI - 10.1111/evo.12990
Subject(s) - biology , asexuality , sexual reproduction , asexual reproduction , habitat , mesocosm , ecology , evolution of sexual reproduction , thrips , spatial heterogeneity , evolutionary biology , genetics , gene , human sexuality , ecosystem , botany , gender studies , sociology
Explaining the overwhelming success of sex among eukaryotes is difficult given the obvious costs of sex relative to asexuality. Different studies have shown that sex can provide benefits in spatially heterogeneous environments under specific conditions, but whether spatial heterogeneity commonly contributes to the maintenance of sex in natural populations remains unknown. We experimentally manipulated habitat heterogeneity for sexual and asexual thrips lineages in natural populations and under seminatural mesocosm conditions by varying the number of hostplants available to these herbivorous insects. Asexual lineages rapidly replaced the sexual ones, independently of the level of habitat heterogeneity in mesocosms. In natural populations, the success of sexual thrips decreased with increasing habitat heterogeneity, with sexual thrips apparently only persisting in certain types of hostplant communities. Our results illustrate how genetic diversity‐based mechanisms can favor asexuality instead of sex when sexual lineages co‐occur with genetically variable asexual lineages.