Hybrid incompatibilities are affected by dominance and dosage in the haplodiploid wasp Nasonia.

Study of genome incompatibilities in species hybrids is important for understanding the genetic basis of reproductive isolation and speciation. According to Haldane's rule hybridization affects the heterogametic sex more than the homogametic sex. Several theories have been proposed that attribute asymmetry in hybridization effects to either phenotype (sex) or genotype (heterogamety).

Recombination and its impact on the genome of the haplodiploid parasitoid wasp Nasonia.

Homologous meiotic recombination occurs in most sexually reproducing organisms, yet its evolutionary advantages are elusive. Previous research explored recombination in the honeybee, a eusocial hymenopteran with an exceptionally high genome-wide recombination rate. A comparable study in a non-social member of the Hymenoptera that would disentangle the impact of sociality from Hymenoptera-specific features such as haplodiploidy on the evolution of the high genome-wide recombination rate in social Hymenoptera is missing.

Functional and evolutionary insights from the genomes of three parasitoid Nasonia species.

We report here genome sequences and comparative analyses of three closely related parasitoid wasps: Nasonia vitripennis, N. giraulti, and N. longicornis.

Facultative sex ratio adjustment in natural populations of wasps: cues of local mate competition and the precision of adaptation.

Sex ratio theory offers excellent opportunities to examine the extent to which individuals adaptively adjust their behavior in response to local conditions. Hamilton's theory of local mate competition, which predicts female-biased sex ratios in structured populations, has been extended in numerous directions to predict individual behavior in response to factors such as relative fecundity, time of oviposition, and relatedness between cofoundresses and between mates. These extended models assume that foundresses use different sources of information, and they have generally been untested or have only been tested in the laboratory.