Meeting Abstract
P3.10 Wednesday, Jan. 6 Changes in Genetic Variation of Energy Metabolism and Life History Traits between Sexual and Asexual Phases of a Clonal Organism. ARTACHO, P.*; FIGUEROA, C.C.; SIMON, J.-C.; CORTES, P.; NESPOLO, R.F.; Univ Austral de Chile, Valdivia; Univ Austral de Chile, Valdivia; INRA, UMR 1099 BiO3P, Le Rheu, France; Univ Austral de Chile, Valdivia; Univ Austral de Chile, Valdivia paulinaartacho@gmail.com
Cyclically parthenogenetic animals (i.e. that alternate sexual and asexual reproduction during its life cycle), such as aphids, represent a good model for studying the short-term evolutionary consequences of sex. In aphids, the sexual phase is induced by unfavorable environmental conditions, producing sexual forms (e.g. males and sexual females) besides parthenogenetic females. Moreover, both sexual as asexual forms can produce wingless and/or winged individuals associated to specific environmental cues. The production of theses morphs could determine a differential investment between the two phases, which can also be traduced in trade-offs with other life-history traits. In this study we studied the quantitative genetic of life-history traits (age at maturity, total fecundity, number of winged and wingless forms, and males and sexual females) and energy metabolism (standard metabolic rate, SMR) in eight genotypes of the pea aphid Acyrthosiphon pisum, during both the sexual and asexual phase. We found larger and significant broad-sense heritability (H2) for age at maturity, number of winged and wingless individuals, and SMR during the sexual phase. Moreover, H2 of the males and sexual females was also significant. The differences in the genetic variation of the SMR between sexual and asexual phases would indicate that exist energy costs expressed only during sexuality, which could be associated to the sexual morphs production. On the other hand, the G x E interaction found in almost all traits indicate that the genotypes would respond independently to the selection in each phase. Acknowledgement: FONDECYT project (3080051), ANILLO project (ACT-38).
