Data from: Parthenogenetic vs. sexual reproduction in oribatid mite communities

Maraun, Mark

Caruso, Tancredi

Hense, Jonathan

Lehmitz, Ricarda

Mumladze, Levan

Murvanidze, Maka

Nae, Ioana

Schulz, Julia

Seniczak, Anna

Scheu, Stefan

mmaraun@gwdg.de

Published Mar 04, 2021 on Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.gr6qb4h

Cite this dataset

Maraun, Mark et al. (2021). Data from: Parthenogenetic vs. sexual reproduction in oribatid mite communities [Dataset]. Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.gr6qb4h

Abstract

The dominance of sex in Metazoa is enigmatic. Sexual species allocate resources to the production of males, while potentially facing negative effects such as the loss of well-adapted genotypes due to recombination, and exposure to diseases and predators during mating. Two major hypotheses have been put forward to explain the advantages of parthenogenetic vs. sexual reproduction in animals, i.e. the Red Queen hypothesis and the Tangled Bank/Structured Resource Theory of Sex. The Red Queen hypothesis assumes that antagonistic predator - prey / parasite - host interactions favor sex. The Structured Resource Theory of Sex predicts sexual reproduction to be favored if resources are in short supply and aggregated in space. In soil a remarkable number of invertebrates reproduces by parthenogenesis, and this pattern is most pronounced in oribatid mites (Oribatida, Acari). Oribatid mites are abundant in virtually any soil across very different habitats, and include many sexual and parthenogenetic (thelytokous). Thereby, they represent an ideal model group to investigate the role of sexual vs. parthenogenetic reproduction across different ecosystems and habitats. Here, we compiled data on oribatid mite communities from different ecosystems and habitats across biomes, including tropical rainforests, temperate forests, grasslands, arable fields, salt marshes, bogs, caves and deadwood. Based on the compiled dataset we analyzed if the percentage of parthenogenetic species and the percentage of individuals of parthenogenetic species are related to total oribatid mite density, species number and other potential driving factors of the reproductive mode including altitude and latitude. We then interpret the results in support of either the Red Queen hypothesis or the Structured Resource Theory of Sex. Overall, the data showed that low density of oribatid mites due to harsh environmental conditions is associated with high frequency of parthenogenesis supporting predictions of the Structured Resource Theory of Sex rather than the Red Queen hypothesis.

Usage notes

006 Appendix Figure S1 May19 new

Figure S1: Density corrected (x-axis) is the residuals of the regression between density (dependent) and PCoA axes used to extract information on the phylogenetic correlation between the species of the analyzed communities. The % of parthenogenetic species or individual corrected (y-axis) is, again, the residuals of a regression between the PCoA axes and the original % values. The regression lines in this figure are thus corrected for phylogenetic correlation, although we could only approximate phylogenetic distance using taxonomic distance and we inferred the latter from the current view of the taxonomic hierarchy of Oribatida (according to Norton and Behan-Pelletier 2009).

007 Appendix Table S1 The Dataset May 19

Table S1: Density, occurence, reproductive mode (sex=sexual; parthen=parthenogenetic) and phylogenetic affiliation of oribatid mite species from 37 different habitats; and characteristics of those habitats (altitude, latitude, percentage of parthenogenetic individuals (p_indiv), percentage of parthenogenetic taxa (p_taxa), oribatid mite species number (sp_nr), and density). Full citations of all papers are given below the table. Phylogenetic grouping was done in accordance with Norton & Behan-Pelletier (2009).

008 Appendix Table S2 May 19

Table S2. Correlation matrix (Pearson’s coefficient) linking key variables (i.e., % of parthenogenetic individual and species, species number and total oribatid density) to each other and the first 6 PCoA axes extracted from the taxonomic distance matrix used to approximate phylogenetic relatedness of species. Bold values were statistically significant at p < 0.05. Given this matrix, we chose PCoA2 as the phylogenetic correction factors to regress % of parthenogenetic individual and % of parthenogenetic species against density (Fig. S1), species number and also altitude and latitude (not shown, correlations not significant).

Location

worldwide

Global