The Cape honey bee and the origins of virgin birth

利用蜜蜂，目的是展示单个基因的突变是如何产生一个新物种的。这种基因导致从有性繁殖到无性繁殖的转变，允许工蜂克隆自己（处女生育），从而把一个以前合作的物种变成了社会的毒瘤。观察由单个基因驱动的实时物种形成事件是一个非常难得的机会，这使该项目能够确定减少邻近种群之间基因流动的社会遗传机制，并解释基因的表达是如何被调节的。此外，由于无性繁殖经常导致群居昆虫的入侵——这是一个危险的结果——了解处女生育的起源对于理解入侵也至关重要。

Using honeybees, the aim is to show how a mutation in a single gene creates a new species. This gene causes a shift from sexual to asexual reproduction, allowing workers to clone themselves (virgin birth), thus turning a formerly cooperative species into a social cancer. Observing a real-time speciation event driven by a single gene is an incredibly rare opportunity and enables this project to determine the socio-genetic mechanisms that reduce gene flow between neighbouring populations and to explain how expression of the gene is regulated. Further, because clonal reproduction often leads to invasiveness in social insects - a dangerous outcome - understanding the origins of virgin birth is also critical to understanding invasiveness.