Researchers find honey bee gene that causes virgin birth

[Judi Lynn]

MAY 7, 2020 / 6:08 PM

By Brooks Hays

May 7 (UPI) -- The Cape honey bee, a subspecies found along the southern coast of South Africa, reproduces without having sex. Now, scientists have identified the gene responsible for the bee's virgin births.

Scientists found the gene, named GB45239, on the bee's eleventh chromosome. The discovery, detailed this week in the journal Current Biology, ends a 30-year search for the virgin birth gene.

Analysis of the novel gene could help scientists gain new insights into the evolution of different reproductive strategies.

"Sex is a weird way to reproduce and yet it is the most common form of reproduction for animals and plants on the planet," study co-author Benjamin Oldroyd, professor of behavioral genetics at the University of Sydney in Australia, said in a news release. "It's a major biological mystery why there is so much sex going on and it doesn't make evolutionary sense. Asexuality is a much more efficient way to reproduce, and every now and then we see a species revert to it."

More:
https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2020/05/07/Researchers-find-honey-bee-gene-that-causes-virgin-birth/6761588880291/?sl=1&ur3=1

[SinisterPants]

1. Virgin births! Murder hornets! Plagues! Luciferin! What's a good atheist boy to do? n/t

[CaptYossarian]

2. It either means Mary was a hermaphrodite or

Jesus was a son of a bee.

[SinisterPants]

3. Beezulbub? n/t

[Judi Lynn]

4. Scientists pinpoint single gene behind virgin birth of Cape honey bees

By Nick Lavars
May 07, 2020

Scientists investigating the genetics underlying a peculiar behavior in South Africa’s Cape honey bee have made a groundbreaking discovery, pinpointing the single gene that enables them to reproduce without having sex. The finding not only answers a decades-old question for researchers in the field, but could have implications when it comes to pest control of other species.

Cape honey bees, or Apis mellifera capensis, inhabit the Cape region of South Africa, where they operate a little differently to other honey bee subspecies. For one, the worker bees feature larger ovaries that can produce the pheromones of a queen, affording them the ability to assert reproductive dominance in a colony.

This can even drive a form of social parasitism where the Cape honey bees invade other colonies and reproduce, before forcing the other worker bees to provide for their larvae. They do this through a single gene that enables them to lay eggs that selectively produce female bees, a unique characteristic but one that can also be problematic.

“Instead of being a cooperative society, Cape honey bee colonies are riven with conflict because any worker can be genetically reincarnated as the next queen,” says Professor Benjamin Oldroyd from the University of Sydney. “When a colony loses its queen the workers fight and compete to be the mother of the next queen.”

More:
https://newatlas.com/biology/gene-virgin-births-cape-honey-bees/