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From: evs@duke.UUCP
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: An All Female Species of Fish!
Message-ID: <9576@duke.cs.duke.edu>
Date: Thu, 30-Apr-87 13:09:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: duke.9576
Posted: Thu Apr 30 13:09:58 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 1-May-87 04:44:38 EDT
References: <1055@thebes.UUCP>
Reply-To: evs@duke.UUCP (Ed Simpson)
Organization: Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC
Lines: 31

In article <1055@thebes.UUCP> greenber@swatsun (Peter Greenberg) writes:
>Oh, by the way, this phenomenon, called gynogeny, I think, is not wholly 
>comfined to the Amazon molly. It is also found in some species of lizards in
>the desert southwest. I have its name in my aforementioned notes.  

The geometrid moth, Alsophila pometaria (fall cankerworm), also exhibits
gynogeny (also called pseudogamy = mating is required for viable eggs but
the sperm is discarded).  The majority of the Long Island, NY population
consists of parthenogenetically reproducing females which must mate to produce
viable eggs.  Electrophoresis shows that there is usually no paternal 
contribution to the genome of the offspring.  See:

Mitter, C., and D. J. Futuyma.  1977.  Parthenogenesis in the fall
cankerworm, Alsophila pometaria (Lepidoptera: Geometridae).
Ent. Exp. Appl. 21: 192-198.


The problem of how separate parthenogenetic lines can maintain species
indentity is long standing.  In fact, according to the biological species
concept separate parthenogenetic lines consitute separate species, if the
lines are completely reproductively isolated.  This is not the case for
the fall cankerworm since a paternal contribution is sometimes found in
the offspring genome.

For a discussion of how to categorize parthenogenetic lines see:

Mayr, E.  1963.  Animal species and evolution.  Harvard. Univ. Press,
Cambridge, Mass.  797pp.
-- 
UUCP: {decvax, seismo}!mcnc!duke!evs  ARPA: evs@cs.duke.edu  CSNET: evs@duke
Ed Simpson, P.O.Box 3140, Duke Univ. Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA 27710