Genetic and phenotypic consequences of local transitions between sexual and parthenogenetic reproduction in the wild

Transitions from sexual to asexual reproduction have occurred in numerous lineages across the tree of life, but many questions remain about how such transitions occur and why asexual populations rarely persist. In facultatively parthenogenetic animals, all-female populations can arise when males are absent or become extinct and, if such populations can persist asexually for many generations, they could ultimately give rise to obligately asexual species. However, the initial stages of this process remain poorly understood. The facultatively parthenogenetic Australian phasmid Megacrania batesii exhibits a spatial mosaic of mixed-sex populations that reproduce predominantly sexually and all-female sites that reproduce exclusively via parthenogenesis. We used this system to compare genetic and phenotypic parameters among multiple natural populations that vary in reproductive mode and geographic location. Analysis of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) collected from reduced representatio..., Wild M. batesii individuals were photographed on their host plants. We used ImageJ to analyse these photos and extract the phenotypic information found in \"megacrania_morphology.csv\". DNA was extracted from M. batesii individuals in the field and sent to Diversity Arrays for DaRTseq reduced representation whole genome sequencing. We received SNPs back found in \"Report_DMegac20-5687_SNP_1.csv\". These SNPs were filtered with the \"prep_for_BOTH_analyses.v.0.1.Rmd\" script and then both the phenotypic data and the genetic data was analysed using \"BOTH_analyses_clean.\" ,