Ecology and evolution of a unisexual fish, the Amazon molly
The Amazon molly, Poecilia formosa, is one of a few species that do not reproduce sexually. Instead they use diploid eggs that are formed without meiosis. These eggs need sperm from males of a different species to trigger embryogenesis. Furthermore, Amazon mollies are a hybrid species, with the parental species still extant. This makes them excellent models for a number of important questions: (1) how does the genome respond to the absence of recombination? (2) why do males mate with females of a sexual parasite? and (3) how do Amazon mollies coexist with their sexual host species? I will give an overview of this interesting species and then address the above questions.
Host: Kate Laskowski