Scientific Reports (Dec 2022)

Bias in sex ratios and polyandry rate in reproduction of Leptinotarsa decemlineata

  • Vladimíra Sedláková,
  • Jitka Stará,
  • Daniela Čílová,
  • Martina Melounová,
  • Jakub Vašek,
  • Pavel Vejl,
  • Petr Doležal,
  • František Kocourek,
  • Ervín Hausvater,
  • Petr Sedlák

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-26177-z
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 1
pp. 1 – 10

Abstract

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Abstract The Colorado potato beetle (CPB, Leptinotarsa decemlineata Slechtd.) is an invasive pest with economic importance worldwide. Sex ratios during egg-hatching and a frequency of polyandry in single-female families were analysed to clarify the reproduction strategy of CPB, which was still known only in fragments. 1296 just hatching 1st instar CPB larvae were collected from 19 single-female families, of which 13 were random families collected from potato fields and 6 were families produced by laboratory farming of naturally fertilised females. All larvae were analysed to detect a sex using a qPCR-based method and to detect polymorphisms in genotypes of 9 microsatellite (SSR) markers. The bias in sex ratio in favour of females was confirmed using linear mixed-effects model in both experimental groups of families: field collections (F = 36.39; P = 0.0001) and laboratory farming (F = 13.74; P = 0.0139). The analysis of diversity in microsatellites proved the polyandry in all progenies as 73% of analysed segregation patterns did not match with the patterns expected for full-sib progenies; on average per locus, 46% of allelic and 49.7% of genotype ratios showed irregular segregation. Both findings contribute toward understanding CPB success rate as an invasive species, as the preferential bearing of females with polyandry has a great potential to keep fitness of progenies, to maintain and operate population diversity, and to accelerate the reproduction of the pest.