Unusual Reproductive Strategies in Hybrid Vertebrates: Cytological Mechanisms of Clonal Reproduction in Fish
Abstract: Sexual reproduction relies on meiosis and fertilization, yet interspecific hybridization often disrupts these processes, leading to hybrid sterility or inviability. Nevertheless, some hybrids overcome these barriers by adopting unusual reproductive strategies that enable successful reproduction in natural populations. In such organisms, gametogenesis is modified to prevent normal chromosome pairing and recombination during meiosis, resulting in clonal gametes. Furthermore, fertilization is also affected as such clonal eggs avoid fusion with sperm DNA and instead use sperm only to initiate embryonic development. In this talk, I focus on the cellular mechanisms of unreduced gamete formation in natural and laboratory hybrids of the genera Cobitis and Poecilia. I further describe gametogenesis in carp gudgeon hybrids of the genus Hypseleotris, which eliminate one parental genome during gametogenesis, producing reduced hemiclonal gametes. Finally, I compare fertilization in sexual species and clonal hybrids, highlighting cellular mechanisms leading to removal of sperm DNA in the later ones.
Speaker: Dr. Dmitrij Dedukh, Institute of Animal Physiology and Genetics, Czech Academy of Sciences
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