Thelytoky

Thelytoky allows females to pass along genotypes that ensure success in that particular environment, having only daughters increases the species output, and energy that would otherwise be exerted into finding or attracting a mate can directly be invested in reproduction.

For example, smalltooth sawfish in Florida populations can be facultatively thelytokous, meaning that they will reproduce sexually when conditions are favorable, but switch to thelytoky when resources and mates become scarce.

While accidental thelytoky can provide a short-term reproductive solution in the absence of a mate, it is typically not sustainable over the long-term due to the loss of genetic diversity.

The genetic diversity generated by sexual reproduction in these organisms is thought to play an important role in their ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions.

Examples of such species include the Cape bee, Apis mellifera capensis, Mycocepurus smithii and clonal raider ant, Ooceraea biroi.Automixis is a form of thelytoky.

[16] Automixis with central fusion also occurs in the Cape honey bee Apis mellifera capensis,[13] the brine shrimp Artemia parthenogenetica,[17] and the termite Embiratermes neotenicus.

Species that display central fusion with reduced recombination include the ants P. punctata[14] and W. auropunctata,[16] the brine shrimp A. parthenogenetica,[17] and the honey bee A. m.

[16] Single queen colonies of the narrow headed ant Formica exsecta provide an illustrative example of the possible deleterious effects of increased homozygosity.

[21] However, survival of offspring over two successive litters was poor, suggesting that automixis with terminal fusion leads to homozygosity and expression of deleterious recessive alleles (inbreeding depression).