Genetic evidence for parthenogenesis in the small carpenter bee Ceratina dallatoreana (Apidae, Ceratinini) in its native distribution range

Abstract

Arrhenotoky is the typical mode of reproduction in Hymenoptera. Diploid females develop from fertilized eggs, whereas haploid males originate from unfertilized eggs. However, some taxa of Hymenoptera have evolved thelytoky, in which diploid females originate parthenogenetically from unfertilized diploid eggs. In contrast to some other hymenopteran lineages, like ants and parasitic wasps, thelytoky is generally very rare in bees.

Here, we evaluated the frequency of thelytoky in the small carpenter bee Ceratina dallatoreana, which was previously assumed to be thelytokous. By comparing genotypes of microsatellite loci between mothers and their offspring, we found that all female offspring were genetically identical to their mothers. We conclude that parthenogenesis is the prevailing and perhaps obligate mode of reproduction in C. dallatoreana. We also classify the cytological mode of this parthenogenesis as apomixis, or automictic parthenogenesis with central fusion and extremely reduced or non-existing recombination, because offspring showed no decrease of heterozygosity.

Because sociality is influenced by relatedness and Ceratina are ancestrally facultatively social, the high relatedness afforded by parthenogenesis should associate with social living in the nest. In accordance with previous work, however, we found no social nests of C. dallatoreana.