ArticlePLoS genetics2015
QTL Mapping of Sex Determination Loci Supports an Ancient Pathway in Ants and Honey Bees.
Article in PLoS genetics, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 38 citations in OpenAlex.
- Meta-Analysis of Public RNA Sequencing Data Revealed Potential Key Genes Associated with Reproductive Division of Labor in Social Hymenoptera and Termites.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Pooled it
- Varroa mites escape the evolutionary trap of haplodiploidy.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Deep evolutionary conservation of a sex-determining locus without sequence homology.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Article
- Genetic mapping in the red mason bee implicates ANTSR as an ancient sex-determining locus in bees and ants.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- LncRNA geneScience advances · 2024Article
- Absence of complementary sex determination in two Leptopilina species (Figitidae, Hymenoptera) and a reconsideration of its incompatibility with endosymbiont-induced thelytoky.Insect science · 2022Article
- Association between host wing morphology polymorphism andEcology and evolution · 2020Article
- Mapping of Multiple Complementary Sex Determination Loci in a Parasitoid Wasp.Genome biology and evolution · 2019Article
- Induction and Evaluation of Inbreeding Crosses Using the Ant, Vollenhovia Emeryi.Journal of visualized experiments : JoVE · 2018Article
- High-Quality Genome Assemblies Reveal Long Non-coding RNAs Expressed in Ant Brains.Cell reports · 2018Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Sex determination mechanisms play a central role in life-history characteristics, affecting mating systems, sex ratios, inbreeding tolerance, etc. Downstream components of sex determination pathways are highly conserved, but upstream components evolve rapidly. Evolutionary dynamics of sex determination remain poorly understood, particularly because mechanisms appear so diverse. Here we investigate the origins and evolution of complementary sex determination (CSD) in ants and bees. The honey bee has a well-characterized CSD locus, containing tandemly arranged homologs of the transformer gene [complementary sex determiner (csd) and feminizer (fem)]. Such tandem paralogs appear frequently in aculeate hymenopteran genomes. However, only comparative genomic, but not functional, data support a broader role for csd/fem in sex determination, and whether species other than the honey bee use this pathway remains controversial. Here we used a backcross to test whether csd/fem acts as a CSD locus in an ant (Vollenhovia emeryi). After sequencing and assembling the genome, we computed a linkage map, and conducted a quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis of diploid male production using 68 diploid males and 171 workers. We found two QTLs on separate linkage groups (CsdQTL1 and CsdQTL2) that jointly explained 98.0% of the phenotypic variance. CsdQTL1 included two tandem transformer homologs. These data support the prediction that the same CSD mechanism has indeed been conserved for over 100 million years. CsdQTL2 had no similarity to CsdQTL1 and included a 236-kb region with no obvious CSD gene candidates, making it impossible to conclusively characterize it using our data. The sequence of this locus was conserved in at least one other ant genome that diverged >75 million years ago. By applying QTL analysis to ants for the first time, we support the hypothesis that elements of hymenopteran CSD are ancient, but also show that more remains to be learned about the diversity of CSD mechanisms.
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