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An equal sex ratio followed by differential sex mortality causes overestimation of females in gall midges: no evidence for sex ratio regulation

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Abstract

Monogeny, the production of unisexual broods by individual females, has been recognized for nearly 80 years. The genetic nature of gall midges' sex determination predicts an equal numbers of male-producing and female-producing females in the populations such that the overall sex ratio is expected to be nearly 1:1. However, observations of some strictly monogenous populations with biased sex ratio, mainly toward females, have raised the question of whether gall midges are able to adjust their offspring sex ratio in response to changes in environmental conditions, and some authors have even considered sex ratio regulation as a strong force in the course of the evolution of monogeny. In this paper, first, by studying the sex ratio variations of the predatory gall midge, Aphidoletes aphidimyza within a generation, we showed that adult males emerge up to 1 day earlier and have shorter life span than females (less than 4 days and up to 6 days, respectively). Although, the sex ratio of A. aphidimyza at the time of emergence was nearly 1:1 (52.41 % males), a simple population simulation indicated that the differential mortality of sexes can lead to a female-biased sex ratio estimation (57.88 % females) under random sampling in the natural environments. Our results imply that the primary sex ratio of monogenous gall midges is nearly 1:1 and that the arrhenogenic/thelygenic gall midges are not able to alter the number of their male/female progenies in response to changes in environmental conditions.

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Acknowledgments

The authors appreciate Saeed Khalaji and Farzaneh Khojasteh for their great help with this work. They also are grateful to Farhad Farhoudi and Hossein Allahyari for providing pea aphids needed for this study. This work was funded by the University of Tehran.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Plant Protection, College of Horticulture and Plant Protection, Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Tehran, PO Box 4111, Karaj, Iran

    Seyed Mohammad Tabadkani, Ahmad Ashouri & Majid Qolizadeh

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  1. Seyed Mohammad Tabadkani
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  2. Ahmad Ashouri
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  3. Majid Qolizadeh
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Correspondence to Seyed Mohammad Tabadkani.

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Communicated by: Sven Thatje

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Tabadkani, S.M., Ashouri, A. & Qolizadeh, M. An equal sex ratio followed by differential sex mortality causes overestimation of females in gall midges: no evidence for sex ratio regulation. Naturwissenschaften 99, 493–499 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-012-0925-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-012-0925-1

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