Rare sex punctuates strict asexual reproduction in the clonal raider ant, Ooceraea biroi

Abstract

While asexual species can often outcompete their sexual counterparts over ecological timescales, their long-term evolutionary success is hindered by a diminished ability to purge deleterious mutations and to adapt to changing environments. However, some asexual species persist for millions of years, and a major question in evolutionary biology is how they do so. One solution is to occasionally reproduce sexually, as has been shown in a handful of primarily asexual species. Here, we investigate the possibility of rare sex in the clonal raider ant, Ooceraea biroi. We report the whole-genome sequence of a previously uncharacterized clonal line and, using population genetic and phylogenetic analyses, show that it originated through sexual reproduction between two extensively studied clonal lines. The mitochondrial genome of this clonal line differs from that of the maternal clonal line at only a single nucleotide, suggesting that the sexual reproduction event occurred within the past few hundred years. These results demonstrate that sex occurs sporadically in the clonal raider ant, allowing it to generate new genetic combinations and potentially to overcome some of the costs of asexuality.