Are environmental factors responsible for geographic variation in the sex ratio of the Greenlandic seed-bug Nysius groenlandicus?

TY - JOUR

T1 - Are environmental factors responsible for geographic variation in the sex ratio of the Greenlandic seed-bug Nysius groenlandicus?

AU - Bøcher, Jens Jensenius

AU - Nachman, Gøsta Støger

N1 - Author Keywords: Greenland; sex-distribution; parthenogenesis; Arctic; adaptation; climate; Heteroptera; Lygaeidae KeyWords Plus: EAST GREENLAND; JAMESON LAND; PARTHENOGENESIS

PY - 2010/2

Y1 - 2010/2

N2 - Until recently nothing indicated an unequal sex ratio in the widespread Greenland seed-bug Nysius groenlandicus (Zetterstedt) (Heteroptera: Lygaeidae). However, recently populations more or less devoid of males were discovered in high arctic Northeast Greenland. This initiated an inspection of the entire material of the species collected in Greenland and now preserved at the Zoological Museum, University of Copenhagen. It was found that the sex ratio varied significantly among different locations. In most cases females were most abundant, but males were either scarce or absent only in samples from Northeast Greenland, indicating that here the species reproduces asexually. This paper demonstrates that the differing sex distributions can be explained by climatic factors (temperature, precipitation) and that the degree of continentality (distance from the open sea) promotes female-biased sex ratios.

AB - Until recently nothing indicated an unequal sex ratio in the widespread Greenland seed-bug Nysius groenlandicus (Zetterstedt) (Heteroptera: Lygaeidae). However, recently populations more or less devoid of males were discovered in high arctic Northeast Greenland. This initiated an inspection of the entire material of the species collected in Greenland and now preserved at the Zoological Museum, University of Copenhagen. It was found that the sex ratio varied significantly among different locations. In most cases females were most abundant, but males were either scarce or absent only in samples from Northeast Greenland, indicating that here the species reproduces asexually. This paper demonstrates that the differing sex distributions can be explained by climatic factors (temperature, precipitation) and that the degree of continentality (distance from the open sea) promotes female-biased sex ratios.

U2 - 10.1111/j.1570-7458.2009.00944.x

DO - 10.1111/j.1570-7458.2009.00944.x

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0013-8703

VL - 134

SP - 122

EP - 130

JO - Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata

JF - Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata

IS - 2

ER -