Androgenesis is a maternal trait in the invasive ant Wasmannia auropunctata

Androgenesis is the production of an offspring containing exclusively the nuclear genome of the fathering male, via the maternal eggs. This unusual mating system is generally considered as a male trait, giving to androgenetic males a substantial fitness advantage over their sexually reproducing relatives. We here provide the first empirical study of the evolutionary outcomes of androgenesis in a haplo-diploid organism: the invasive ant Wasmannia auropunctata. Some of the populations of this species have a classical haplo-diploid sexual mating system. In other populations, females and males are produced through parthenogenesis and androgenesis, respectively, whereas workers are produced sexually. We conducted laboratory reciprocal-cross experiments with reproductive individuals from both types of populations and analyzed their progenies with genetic markers, to determine the respective contribution of males and females on the production of androgenetic males. We found that androgenesis w...