Recent comparative studies have revealed significant differences in the developmental gene networks operating in three holometabolous insects: the beetle Tribolium castaneum, the parasitic wasp Nasonia vitripennis and the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster. I discuss these differences in relation to divergent and convergent changes in cellular embryology. I speculate on how segmentation gene netw...

Many organisms monitor the annual change in day length and use this information for the timing of their seasonal response. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying photoperiodic timing are largely unknown. The wasp Nasonia vitripennis is an emerging model organism that exhibits a strong photoperiodic response: Short autumnal days experienced by females lead to the induction of developmental...

Homologous meiotic recombination occurs in most sexually reproducing organisms, yet its evolutionary advantages are elusive. Previous research explored recombination in the honeybee, a eusocial hymenopteran with an exceptionally high genome-wide recombination rate. A comparable study in a non-social member of the Hymenoptera that would disentangle the impact of sociality from Hymenoptera-specif...

Barriers to gene flow can result in populations evolving into separate species, and understanding how these barriers evolve is a key step the process of speciation. This study investigates major barrier flow, mortality during development, two parasitoid wasp Nasonia vitripennis Walker N. giraulti Darling. Previous work has demonstrated high haploid hybrid males species shown potential rescue fr...

The olfactory sense is of crucial importance for animals, but their response to chemical stimuli is plastic and depends on their physiological state and prior experience. In many insect species, mating status influences the response to sex pheromones, but the underlying neuromodulatory mechanisms are poorly understood. After mating, females of the parasitic wasp Nasonia vitripennis are no longe...

This study uses molecular and cytogenetic methods to determine the origin of a B chromosome in some males of the wasp Trichogramma kaykai. This so-called paternal sex ratio (PSR) chromosome transmits only through sperm and shortly after fertilization triggers degeneration of the paternal genome, while keeping itself intact. The resulting embryos develop into haploid B-chromosome-carrying males....

In haplodiploid species, Wolbachia-induced cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI) can be expressed in one of two ways: as a "conversion" of diploid fertilized eggs into haploid males or as embryonic mortality. Here we describe CI-type variation within the parasitic wasp genus Nasonia and genetically analyze the basis of this variation. We reach four main conclusions: (i) CI is expressed primarily as ...