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Baltorussus total makeover: rejuvenation and sex change in an ancient parasitoid wasp lineage.

ABSTRACT: The Orussidae is a small and rare but phylogenetically important family of parasitoid wasps. The fossil record of the family is also very poor. Baltorussus velteni was described from Baltic amber from an allegedly female specimen. This and another recently discovered specimen are examined with microCT scanning and standard microscopy. We reveal that both the holotype and the new specimen are actually males. Furthermore, the results of the microCT scanning allow us to integrate the fossils in a morphological data set assembled for extant Orussidae. Phylogenetic analyses consistently retrieve Baltorussus as a separate basal lineage within the crown group, whereas two Cretaceous fossils are placed as stem group orussids and a Dominican amber fossil in an extant genus. Based on the positions of the fossils, we estimate that the extant Orussidae radiated in the mid-Cretaceous (approx. 100 Ma ago). This is considerably younger than a previously suggested Early Jurassic date (180 Ma ago), which was primarily based on biogeographic evidence.

SUBMITTER: Vilhelmsen L

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4041779 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Baltorussus total makeover: rejuvenation and sex change in an ancient parasitoid wasp lineage.

Vilhelmsen Lars L Zimmermann Dominique D

PloS one 20140602 6

The Orussidae is a small and rare but phylogenetically important family of parasitoid wasps. The fossil record of the family is also very poor. Baltorussus velteni was described from Baltic amber from an allegedly female specimen. This and another recently discovered specimen are examined with microCT scanning and standard microscopy. We reveal that both the holotype and the new specimen are actually males. Furthermore, the results of the microCT scanning allow us to integrate the fossils in a m ...[more]

PMID: 24887435

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Project description:Inbreeding and inbreeding depression are processes in small populations of particular interest for a range of human activities such as animal breeding, species conservation, or pest management. In particular, biological control programs should benefit from a thorough understanding of the causes and consequences of inbreeding because natural enemies experience repetitive bottlenecks during importation, laboratory rearing, and introduction. Predicting the effect of inbreeding in hymenopteran parasitoid wasps, frequently used in biological control programs, is nonetheless a difficult endeavor. In haplodiploid parasitoids, the purge of deleterious alleles via haploid males should reduce genetic load, but if these species also have complementary sex determination (CSD), abnormal diploid males will be produced, which may jeopardize the success of biological control introductions. Mastrus ridens is such a parasitoid wasp with CSD, introduced to control the codling moth, Cydia pomonella (L.). We studied its life history traits in the laboratory under two conditions: inbred (full-sib) and outbred (nonsib) crosses, across five generations, to examine the consequences of inbreeding in this species. We found that in inbred lines, nonreproducing females live less, the number of daughters produced was lower, and sex ratio (proportion of males) and proportion of diploid males were higher. Diploid males were able to produce fertile daughters, but fewer than haploid males. Lineage survival was similar for inbred and outbred lines across the five generations. The most significant decrease in fitness was thus a consequence of the production of diploid males, but this effect was not as extreme as in most other species with CSD, due to the fertility of diploid males. This study highlights the importance of determining the type of sex determination in parasitoid wasps used for biological control, and the importance of maintaining genetic diversity in species with CSD when importation or augmentation is the goal.

Dataset Information

Baltorussus total makeover: rejuvenation and sex change in an ancient parasitoid wasp lineage.

Publications

Baltorussus total makeover: rejuvenation and sex change in an ancient parasitoid wasp lineage.

Similar Datasets

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