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. 2023 Jun;19(6):20230129.
doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2023.0129. Epub 2023 Jun 7.

Discovery of facultative parthenogenesis in a new world crocodile

Warren Booth  1   2 , Brenna A Levine  2   3 , Joel B Corush  4 , Mark A Davis  4 , Quetzal Dwyer  5 , Roel De Plecker  6 , Gordon W Schuett  2   7
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Discovery of facultative parthenogenesis in a new world crocodile

Warren Booth et al. Biol Lett. 2023 Jun.

Abstract

Over the past two decades, there has been an astounding growth in the documentation of vertebrate facultative parthenogenesis (FP). This unusual reproductive mode has been documented in birds, non-avian reptiles-specifically lizards and snakes-and elasmobranch fishes. Part of this growth among vertebrate taxa is attributable to awareness of the phenomenon itself and advances in molecular genetics/genomics and bioinformatics, and as such our understanding has developed considerably. Nonetheless, questions remain as to its occurrence outside of these vertebrate lineages, most notably in Chelonia (turtles) and Crocodylia (crocodiles, alligators and gharials). The latter group is particularly interesting because unlike all previously documented cases of FP in vertebrates, crocodilians lack sex chromosomes and sex determination is controlled by temperature. Here, using whole-genome sequencing data, we provide, to our knowledge, the first evidence of FP in a crocodilian, the American crocodile, Crocodylus acutus. The data support terminal fusion automixis as the reproductive mechanism; a finding which suggests a common evolutionary origin of FP across reptiles, crocodilians and birds. With FP now documented in the two main branches of extant archosaurs, this discovery offers tantalizing insights into the possible reproductive capabilities of the extinct archosaurian relatives of crocodilians and birds, notably members of Pterosauria and Dinosauria.

Keywords: Crocodylia; Dinosauria; archosaur; facultative parthenogenesis; temperature-dependent sex determination; terminal fusion automixis.

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Conflict of interest statement

We declare we have no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
(a) Adult American crocodile, Crocodylus acutus. Photo courtesy of Q. Dwyer. (b) Stillborn fetus of American crocodile, Crocodylus acutus, Parthenogen. Photo courtesy of Q. Dwyer.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
A simplified phylogeny for the crown group Reptilia with major clades is depicted. Highlighted lineages have records of FP via terminal fusion automixis, with some exemplar species reflecting phylogenetic spread where possible. Note that the divergence time scale is not linear.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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