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EEB Thursday Seminar - Michigan's amazing "gene thieves": Evolution and ecology of unisexual (all female) Ambystoma salamanders

Katherine Greenwald, Associate Professor, Eastern Michigan University
Thursday, September 28, 2017
4:00-5:00 PM
1210 Chemistry Dow Lab Map
Unisexual (all female) Ambystoma salamanders reproduce using a “leaky” form of gynogenesis requiring the uptake of a spermatophore from a sympatric sexual male. This may trigger asexual egg development, or the sperm genome may be incorporated into the zygote, typically resulting in ploidy-elevated offspring. My research focuses on identifying the evolutionary benefits of this unique reproductive mode, which has allowed for the persistence of this lineage for six million years. I will discuss recent breeding trials we have conducted pairing unisexual females with blue-spotted salamander males either from their own pond or from a more distant pond. Females paired with local males produced more clutches overall, and a larger proportion of the eggs were viable. Genotyping revealed that a significantly higher proportion of these eggs included the paternal genome. The ability to flexibly adjust between sexual and asexual reproduction in a context-dependent manner might help explain the evolutionary success of this lineage.

View YouTube video of seminar: https://youtu.be/mXZ0cxZFsgk
Building: Chemistry Dow Lab
Website:
Event Type: Lecture / Discussion
Tags: Biology, Ecology
Source: Happening @ Michigan from Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, EEB Thursday Seminars